Journey of a Lifetime 2
by GreatOverseer
Summary: Jack Steel is now a very successful and well-known member of Spectre Branch. With his wife, Angelica, now confirmed pregnant, he is gearing up to raise a happy family. But when Builderman recruits him on a mission into deep space to the planet Oxiaris, Jack must survive the perils along the way to return home in time for the birth of his son. (T FOR VIOLENCE AND SUGGESTIVE THEMES)
1. Chapter 1: Capture

_"If Admin had wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings. But he has given us wings, and those wings are our resources and ingenuity. Pretty early on we realized those wings gave us power over Admin. So we built turbo boosters, completely circumventing his power. That was when we truly blossomed as a race."_

_- Historian J. Feldspiin, __On the Matter of Power and Responsibility__, Grand Year 2012_

It was a normal day in the life of Jack Steel. Of course, doctors said that normal was different for everyone. Jack Steel, for instance, found himself at least once a day hanging off the edge of a tall building. Not a skyscraper, but one of the shorter buildings in the higher and middle levels. The fall could still kill you, though. Those buildings usually averaged out at about twenty stories high, enough to completely obliterate a watermelon - and to crack open a Robloxian's skull.

He was hanging on a particularly nasty building over on Playrobot Avenue and Northeast Dingo Boulevard. Inside, it was suspected, a noted criminal was spending his days. Arthur Ipecac had been convicted for arson, bank robbery, homicide (he had racked up an impressive twelve convictions there), and drug smuggling. Previously he had worked with the notorious drug lord, Sanchan, a man whom Jack had killed in the course of his duty. Ipecac was rumored to have been inside Sanchan's underground compound when the RPD had raided it two years ago, taking Sanchan's life.

There had been no report of Ipecac for the subsequent twenty-three months, until now. Jack had been given the task of tracking Ipecac down late last week, and he had immediately set to work. He had placed multiple IncogniProbes in the air around the upper, middle, and lower levels of the floor of New Robloxia. Most had come back empty, but a result had come in from the middle level. This building, in an ancient Korbloxian style, hosted a confirmed facial match. Nobody in the city had a face like Arthur Ipecac. Nobody on the entire planet had a face like Arthur Ipecac.

Jack shifted his grip on a thin ledge, and checked the panel on his wrist. On the panel was a readout. It showed two missiles in white wireframe imagery. Jack smiled. Hopefully he would only need two missiles.

He began to climb again, focusing on his grip on the wall. His fingers slid into the cracks between bricks, caught, then released. Jack grunted as his foot slammed on a gargoyle and it gave way. He suddenly found himself hanging from an even higher position on the side of the building, except this time on nothing but slowly eroding mortar.

_Blast, _he thought.

He tried to bring his right leg over to a windowsill.

_CRACK! _As if some Telamon-esque spirit within the windowsill had anticipated his movement, the ledge gave way. The mortar Jack was hanging from slid away a little more. Jack gritted his teeth. This building was old, but Robloxians weren't ones to give up after every skinned knee or stubbed toe.

_Or broken skull, _said a little voice in the back of his head. He ignored it.

He swung the left leg out, and connected with a slightly protruding brick. The builder had been sloppy, it seemed, and some parts of the wall were beginning to deform slightly. Jack's foot felt the firmness of the brick, and held itself there. Now that Jack was steady on that one leg, he found purchase with his other leg. Then he began to pull himself up the wall again.

Ipecac had been spotted in a fifteenth-story window. Jack was on the fourteenth. He was close indeed. He just had to reach the fifteenth without some piece of crumbly architecture or other killing him.

"Having fun, Steel?"

Jack looked up into the face of Arthur Ipecac, a man whose face was the stuff of not just nightmares but drug-induced hallucinations. A pair of dark, very deep-set eyes stared out from either side of a huge hooked nose whose tip was split into two lobes of sorts; this huge jumble of features was set above a mouth that was both wide and large, with unevenly set and perfectly square teeth jutting from gums the color of old carrion.

"Not exactly having fun, Arthur," Jack said firmly. He pulled himself up another few blox. "Put your hands up. I've got a gun and I'm really not afraid to shoot you out of that window!"

"Oho, but you are, aren't you?"

And Jack suddenly had to admit that, yes, indeed he was afraid. Not afraid of shooting Ipecac, which he'd dreamed about doing, but what would happen if he missed. Would Ipecac perhaps drop one of his infamous napalm capsules down onto his face? Or would it be the old blowtorch in the gas leak?

"You are, heh," Ipecac continued. "You are you are you ARE! I knew it! Yeheheh! Why I ought to jump and clap me hands and-"

"Stop playing games," Jack said.

"Playing games, Mr. Steel? Hah, I'd never dream of it, heh! Just showing you the harsh realities, just being a guiding light, yeah?"

Jack increased his pace. As his hand rested on a stone ball being held in the hand of a snarling Alpha Noob gargoyle, Ipecac darted out of sight. Jack froze. Still keeping that one hand on the ball, he reached into the holster on his right and pulled out a small black pistol. On the end of the pistol was a sort of hook thing with four prongs bent outwards and down. W, Spectre Branch's technician, had called this device a Minigrap. The Minigrap was currently in beta version, and W had told Jack not to break it or get it dirty or use it or anything like that. _Sometimes, _Jack thought, _you really need to understand how I work._

He raised the Minigrap above his head, took aim down the sights, and squeezed the trigger. A thin black wire shot out, trailing after the hook which landed in the crook of a statue's arm. Jack tested his weight, then tensed for action. He pushed backwards off the side of the building just as Ipecac reappeared with a napalm capsule and released it. It fell, a glowing shard of a neutron star, and shattered on the ground. Fire roared below. Jack pressed a button on the side of the Minigrap's handle, and the wire rolled back into the gunbarrel, taking Jack up to Ipecac's level like a mountain climber's safety harness. He swung, watched the crook's expression momentarily flash signs of confusion, then revert back to a conman's grin.

"Ahaha, Mr. Steel, aha, ha, hehe, looks like you've got a secret weapon, eh?" said Ipecac.

"Got two of them," Jack said, un holstering the shiny gun from his other side. He pulled the hammer back, and leaned out across the gap to point the gun at Ipecac.

"I mean it," he said. "One wrong move, I blow you to Banland."

"Funny, 'cause here I was thinkin' I'd be doing that to you," Ipecac sneered. Then he looked down, and the sneer turned to a snarling desperate grin. "Y'know that fire down there?" he asked. "It's spread, Mr. Steel. Eatin' into the foundations, man... burnin' first floor first, you see, eatin' its way up here... Building's gonna fall, man, fall, and I'm takin' you with me!"

The fire had indeed spread, and was now consuming the first floor. The building was beginning to feel slightly unstable. Jack steadied himself on the wall, aimed at Ipecac, and fired. Ipecac staggered, his foot suddenly bloody. But he kept the manic grin. His hands were held out by his sides. Jack kicked back and swung into the room where Ipecac was standing. The man laughed, and turned around.

"Cuff me, copper," he said. Then louder: "Cuff me, I said! Admin preserve us, I'm being arrested by such a slacker!"

Jack walked up to Ipecac, hesitated. Yes, Ipecac may have just surrendered, but Ipecac was a criminal. And, even more dangerous, he had nothing to lose anymore; what life he had was forfeited by his criminal lifestyle. Jack reached into his pocket theatrically, and clinked some handcuffs around purposefully. Then as Ipecac began to turn on his heel he lunged forward and grabbed his shoulders, holding him there. Ipecac struggled, but Jack took his left hand and jammed it into a pressure point at the base of Ipecac's neck.

"Yeah," Jack said, "okay, sure, you want me to fall for that one, I see. Yeah. I see what you were thinking." He took out the cuffs and fastened them to Ipecac's wrist. "Apparently," he continued as he locked them, "you weren't thinking a lot."

He turned around, and looked back out the window he had come through. Judging by how much the cityscape beyond was swaying, he had very little time before this whole building would topple onto its side. Jack slung Ipecac over his shoulder, and took a running jump out the window. As he did so, he un-holstered the Minigrap and launched it onto a windowsill on the seventeenth floor. Then as the building finally gave way he swung on the cable and caught the window ledge of the building opposite with his feet; he swayed, but finally gained balance and pulled himself upright. Fumbling with the Minigrap, he released the cable from its miniature winch and watched it trail after the falling building.

Jack entered the room opposite the window, and set Ipecac down on the tiled floor. Then he looked up at the old lady sitting at a nearby table, watching him.

"Happen to have any rope or anything?" he asked. The old lady, after a few seconds, nodded and walked over to a cabinet. Opening it, she tossed a length of twine to Jack, who took it in his hands and bound Ipecac's legs together.

"You don't mind if I use your phone, right?" he asked the lady.

"Eh, yeah sure," said the old lady. Jack walked over to the lady's phone, an old-fashioned rotary dial module, and hastily spun a few numbers into the wheel. Then, holding the receiver up to his ear he waited as the loud dial tone buzzed irritatingly. Eventually, he was routed to one of Spectre Branch's many telephone operators, and finally patched to Matt Dusek's private number. When Dusek answered, he sounded tired and groggy.

_"Yes, yes, Steel, what do you want? I just woke up from my nap. This is supposed to be my quiet day!"_

"Sorry to bother you on your 'quiet day'," snapped Jack, "but I've caught Ipecac."

_"Oh, good, he's been on our watch list for, like, ever. What do you need? Helicopters, I expect."_

"Yes please," replied Jack, "only I think I'll need all of them."

_"All of them? Why's that? Ipecac's just one guy, after all."_

"Yes sir, but he had some pretty powerful allies in the underground criminal world. Drug Baron Goulder's one fellow he contacted recently. That name ring a bell?"

_"I see your point, Steel. Fine, I'll send twenty aircraft, but that's ALL. Okay? Remember last month? Remember that fiasco over Bloxburg? I'm not having a repeat incident, believe me."_

Dusek hung up. Jack stepped back from the phone, and turned to Ipecac. Then he knelt down, and waited for the sounds of whirring helicopter blades...


	2. Chapter 2: The Mission

_"One can truly marvel at the speed at which Spectre Branch grew into a global superpower. From a secret team of operatives under Matt Dusek (and by extension the Adminship), they blossomed into a paramilitary organization that numbers, at the last count, over five-thousand. This quite upset the balance of power on Robloxia; for millennia, warlords had held reign over vast tracts of the southern latitude. But Spectre Branch's rise to power forced these warlords into hiding, for no ruler could escape a force such as this."_

_- __Essays on Life__ by John Shedletsky_

Since that day two years ago when the Associates fell, Spectre Branch had expanded into a military and political beast. Jack still felt awestruck as he entered the lobby of the Headquarters, at ground level far below the operating rooms that began on the fifteenth floor. The lobby was a large glass-walled area that looked out over the streets and, far beyond, the skyscrapers and bustle of commerce. It had a streamlined, almost zeerusty design, all chrome and shining blue lights, but interspersed with potted plants and modern computers. The tiles covering the floor were black and white, forming a checkerboard pattern. Jack strode though the door, trying not to gape. Reaching to his left, he caught his long dark red coat by the sleeve and snatched it off the hook, slinging it over his shoulders and removing a pair of slim sunglasses. He slid these onto the bridge of his nose, obscuring his eyes. The glasses displayed a readout in the left lens, and the right lens had crosshairs which focused on certain people and objects.

A short, squat barrel-like object on six pairs of widely set and independent treads rolled past. Jack's sunglasses informed him that this thing was a menial labor Bot (a Bot was an entity that was simply programmed to follow a specified kind of object.) The Bot was performing a surveillance operation currently, as an extra security measure in case of enemy infiltration. It latched onto his path, matching his speed as Jack walked towards the elevator doors. Hastily, Jack diverted somewhat and brushed past an accountant heading for his desk. The Bot turned to follow this new subject, and Jack entered the elevator, a pod made of darkly tinted safety glass. He pressed a large white button affixed to the doorframe, and with a _shwiiiiiin _the elevator snapped its doors shut and rocketed up the transparent shaft.

Jack was treated to a view of New Robloxia, gem of all civilization, through the glass walls. A great mass of city structures covered the ground like an overblown lawn. Among this confusion arose spires, great skyscrapers, piercing the clouds and going beyond them to where the sun blazed down. And, always, there was the air traffic. War clan troop carriers buzzed past, the ranks arranged on seats on the exterior walls. Cargo ships loomed, full of bricks and weapons and AIs and other goods, engine flares contained in sheathes the size of apartment buildings; the body of each cargo craft was longer than one of the gigantic skyscrapers, and could hold millions of Robloxians in its living quarters alone. Personal hovercars, buoyed in the air by lightbricks affixed to the chassis, sped by in swarms. Jack couldn't help but be amazed by the intense advancement of what the race had created. Ten thousand Robloxitys at least could fit inside this mega-city.

The elevator arrived at Jack's floor, and he disembarked. No sooner had he done so then the elevator sped back down again. He walked slowly into the Agent's Quarters. It was not in the same futuristic style as the lobby, but looked more like a high-class hotel. The floor was carpeted in red, and the walls were of a golden-brown lacquered wood, adorned with luminous bricks which were held in white plastic holders. There was black leather furniture in selected spots of the room, occupied intermittently by Agents in casual and business garb. Jack spotted who he had wanted to meet almost instantly: the figure of Andes254, his chief of security and the current fourth-in-command of Spectre Branch.

"Hey, Andes!" Jack called. Andes turned in his chair and waved to Jack. He was still wearing his favorite hoodie, the one he had two years ago during the assault on the Associates.

"Good news, man," Andes said. "They've booked Ipecac into the Hexagon Maximum-Security Prison."

"Glad to hear Dusek actually sent those choppers," Jack said. "I left 'fore they were supposed to arrive. Ipecac was cuffed though, so escape was out of the question."

"Right. Well, what's good, man?"

Jack sat down in an armchair across from Andes. From his seat, he could see the rugged features underneath the hood, the close-cut hair, the stubble.

"Andes," he began. Something came up in his throat and he forced it down. "Er, Andes," he continued, "do you, by any chance, have any... experience... with...?" He trailed off, but Andes' eyes told him he understood exactly what Jack meant.

"Women?" Andes said softly.

"Babies," Jack replied.

"Damn," said Andes. "That quick?"

"Nonono, no, you see, Angelica and I... when she went to get tested, the result was positive," Jack said. "She's pregnant."

"Why tell me?" asked Andes.

"Well, I could tell someone with less experience," Jack said, "but I'm not sure that'd help. I know you've got a son. Three, four years?"

"Four," said Andes. "Actually, gonna be five one of these days."

"What do you even... do with a baby?" Jack asked. "I mean... I don't know if I'm prepared."

"Just follow your instinct or something," Andes said. "Y'know. Go with the flow."

Jack nodded; he could see how that could work, but there were so many variables involved here that it sickened him to just leave things all to chance. What if the baby was born prematurely, or one of the machines broke, or Angelica (Admin-forbid) died in childbirth? So many variables. In a way, it was almost easier not to think about it, but he couldn't.

"Guess that's good advice," he sighed. "Right, thanks man."

"No problem, anyt-" Andes began.

The lift doors opened suddenly, and Andes cut himself off to look at the new arrival. It was Matt Dusek, head of Spectre Branch. Dusek's robe fluttered about his feet, and the gnarled staff he clutched in one hand glowed with power at the top. Dusek strode in, glanced around, and then brought the end of his staff down on the floor. There was a boom, a sudden flash, and everyone fell silent.

"Jack Steel?" Dusek enquired. He looked around, focused on Jack. "You, come here," he said. "Urgent matter. Needs instant attention."

"Okay," Jack replied, standing up and joining Dusek. He looked back at Andes, shrugged. Andes shrugged back.

"Get in the lift," Dusek said. Jack obeyed, and Dusek pressed the lift button, bringing them down the glass shaft. As they descended, Dusek was staring ahead, but not at the city. He was looking through the clouds into the sky.

They arrived at the lobby. Dusek disembarked first, and Jack followed. He could see dozens of Admin Guards in the lobby, all in formation around Builderman, who was sitting on one side of a small folding table. Jack stopped in front of Builderman, who motioned for him to sit down. Jack did so, and Builderman smiled, steepling his hands in front of himself.

"Alright," said Jack, "what is it?"

"Mr. Steel," said Builderman, "you've proven yourself to be an excellent agent of Spectre Branch. In the last year alone, crime has dropped twenty-five percent. And I see you have been commended on no less than seventeen occasions by wealthy clients who feel you have done 'excellent work.'"

"True," Jack agreed, "true. Your point, M'lord?"

"My point is that I'm hiring you, Steel," Builderman explained. "But I don't just hire any old agent or warrior. Namek, who is Clockwork among us? I could have hired him, but he is too reliant on his quick tongue. Grean Overseer, who I happen to know now resides in an asteroid belt between us and Blockland? No, he's far too unpredictable. I hired you, Jack (can I call you Jack?) because you are a man with the right blend of skill and brains for our enterprises. You have a strong sense, not of what is good or evil, but what is right or wrong. You are the cop's cop. You may not be the leader of Spectre Branch, but you are their flagship, their poster-boy. And you're what we need."

"Fine, fine," said Jack, raising his hands, "I know all that, I know my reputation and my accomplishments and all that... but what's the mission anyways?"

"A mission of great strategic and materialistic importance," Builderman said mysteriously. A smile tugged at the right corner of his mouth, and he drummed his fingers against each other.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Well," he said, "where do I go? The Desert of the Jihad over in Kanais? The deepest jungles of Korbloxia? JaredValdez's mountain hideout? I'd love to get my hands on that squirrely sunuvabitch."

"Oh no, Jack," Builderman chuckled, "nowhere near those places."

"Then where?"

"To the final frontier, or so it is called. Jack, you are going into space."

Space.

Jack felt a strange sense of awe as Builderman's words echoed. Space. Space. SPACE. Space was that great unknown in most people's lives. Jack himself had never been off world, although he had heard tales. Those tales involved great adventures on unfamiliar worlds in strange star systems, conquests of land and of wealth, women so beautiful they could freeze a man solid, and terror so great that the bravest frigate captain would turn tail and flee. Space. Space was Robloxia's dreams realized in an infinite codescape, black as pitch, studded with diamonds, endless, primal, the greatest mystery. And Jack had been recruited to see space for himself. SPACE.

"You seem stunned, Jack Steel," Builderman said at last. Jack had been sitting silently for a while, hands folded in his lap. He looked at the head Administrator.

"My wife," he muttered. "My wife's pregnant."

"Oh, trust me, you'll be back in time to see your son," Builderman replied. He raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I know it's a boy. Was that supposed to be a surprise? Oh, my bad if it was. Congratulations, by the way."

"When do I leave," Jack said flatly. There was no questioning tone and hook at the end of the sentence, just flat nothingness.

"Tomorrow," Builderman said. He suddenly bent down, straightened up again with a folder in his hand. He thrust it towards Jack, who took it and studied the front. The folder was a very thin block of flexible plastic, with a switchboard on the front allowing different documents within to be read in GUI form. Jack began with the first document.

_THE USS GREAT JUSTICE  
STATS AND READOUT_

_THE USS GREAT JUSTICE IS ONE OF THE FOREMOST SHIPS IN THE ROBLOXIAN FLEET. ITS LENGTH IS 4,500 BLOX STANDARD MEASURE, AND ITS CLASS IS "MEGANEURA", MEANING A SHIP DESIGNED FOR INTERSTELLAR BATTLE. ITS ARSENAL WEIGHS OUT AT 210 STANDARD PROJECTILE CANNONS AFFIXED TO CREVICES IN THE HULL, 45 MISSILE LAUNCHERS PLACED AT STRATEGIC LOCATIONS ON THE PROW AND AFT OF THE SHIP, AND SEVERAL DOZEN AI-CONTROLLED HOMING MISSILES DEPLOYED FROM PITS ON THE FRONT. THE SHIPS HULL IS DESIGNED FOR WITHSTANDING EXPLOSIVE ARTILLERY, UP TO A CERTAIN POINT, BUT A SHIELDBLOCK GENERATOR CREATES SHORT-LIVED TRANSPARENT BLOCKS OF ENERGY OVER WEAKER AREAS LIKE THE ENGINE TURBINES. THE SHIP CAN HOLD 5,500 CREWMEN AT A TIME. ITS TOP SPEED IS SOMEWHERE OVER RENDER DISTANCE._

Jack stopped reading and looked back at Builderman. The GUI folded back into the folder.

"So that's a ship," he said.

"That is a very high-class ship," Builderman said. "Indeed, it is one of our best, as indicated in the first docu-"

"Sounds like a glorified sea ship," Jack interrupted. "And it works in space, does it?"

"It works very well in space, oh yes indeed," Builderman confirmed. "We merely use naval terms because we aren't very original as a species."

"Another question," Jack said. "When you go out in space, don't you get all runny and stuff? Like, you explode everywhere? Depressurization or something?"

"Oh, no, no," Builderman laughed. "No, space is actually quite hospitable. No, indeed, it's some of the planets you need to worry about. And the gravity. Space has a very strong downward pull. So far, we have not ascertained why. Many believe that when we were programmed the creators forgot to make everything float like it should. The planets are anchored, though, via a center baseplate."

"Fascinating," Jack said. "Er, who else is coming?"

"About three-thousand or so crewmen," Builderman answered, "five hundred Admin Guards, representatives from all Robloxia's major war clans and businesses, guards for them, and the captain and his assistants. And you. All total, I believe there are almost 5,200."

"Wow, that's a lot," Jack breathed.

"Indubitably." Builderman stood up. "You may keep the file, Jack. I'd hate it if you were left in the dark about anything. Right, well, must dash. I have to arrange flight procedures."

He turned and walked off. A brief hand signal alerted the Admin Guards to follow him. The stream of uniforms exited the front doors, and passed onto the streets. Jack watched them go, then watched an Administrative craft pick them up and fly out of sight. He resumed his study of the folder.

_USS GREAT JUSTICE  
FLIGHT PLAN AND VOYAGE DESCRIPTION_

_THE USS GREAT JUSTICE WILL DEPART FROM NEW ROBLOXIA AT 9:00 AM, AND MAKE A PASS THROUGH THE ROBLOXIAN LOW-RES SPACE GATE AT APPROXIMATELY 10:30 AM. WHEN WE HAVE REACHED DEEP SPACE (WHICH IS DEFINED AS ANY SPACE 750,000,000 MILES SOUTH OF ROBLOXIAN TERRITORY) WE WILL STOP FOR SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE, THEN CONTINUE ON TOWARDS THE H'UATAR NEBULA, WHERE OUR FINAL DESTINATION AWAITS. OUR FINAL DESTINATION IS THE PLANET OXIARIS (SEE DOCUMENT 7)._

H'Uatar Nebula. Robloxian Territory. Oxiaris. These words were alien to him. So was deep space, and any distance as far as 750,000,000 miles. At least he could know more about Oxiaris, which to him sounded like one of those utopian-type worlds with crystal spires and togas and suchlike. Jack opened the entry.

_USS GREAT JUSTICE  
DESTINATION REPORT_

_OXIARIS IS THE FIFTH PLANET IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM KNOWN AS OXIS. IT IS KNOWN TO BE A VERY DANGEROUS PLANET, WHERE THE GROUND IS UNEVEN AND DOTTED WITH LAVA RIVERS AND LAKES. VERY LITTLE IS KNOWN OF NATIVE FAUNA, BUT THE PLANET IS RICH IN TANAN OIL AND IS THEREFORE VITAL TO ROBLOXIAN SOCIETY. OXARIAS' ATMOSPHERE IS TOXIC, SO A BREATHING APPARATUS IS REQUIRED AT ALL TIMES WHEN ON THE SURFACE. ONE OXIARAN DAY IS ONLY 4 HOURS IN LENGTH, BUT THE NIGHTS ARE 35 HOURS, MAKING THIS PLANET ALMOST ALWAYS DARK._

"Sounds like a nice place for a holiday," Jack whispered to himself. He closed the GUI and slung the folder underneath his arm. wandering back into the elevator, he shot back up to the Agent's Quarters and said brief goodbyes to everyone there. He knew most of the old-timers, who'd been there when he was but a new recruit. Block, Hamburg, all those others held a special place for him.

As he exited the lobby, he flagged down a cab and stepped into it. The cabbie turned back to face him.

"Where to, Gov," he asked.

"57th and Inverse," Jack said. He sat back, and the cab shot off into the city.


	3. Chapter 3: Angel

_"Keep on fearing, Robloxia. You've succeeded in becoming known, wealthy, powerful; yet, you're so afraid of losing all of it that you unwittingly speed along to your own destruction!"_

_Admonition of Yorick before his death, Grand Year 2009_

Jack's apartment was of middling size, and there wasn't much color. Jack had refrained from staying in the lavishly decorated room Dusek had offered him, saying that a room like that would spoil him.

Angelica was there when Jack entered. She sat up from the couch, smiled, and walked over to him. She was a full head shorter than him, and when they hugged her head pressed into his solar plexus.

"Oomph," Jack grunted, pulling her tight.

They released each other, and Angelica stood back. She looked him up and down.

"Take those damn sunglasses off," she ordered. Jack did so, and placed them in his coat pocket. The coat was then hung by the door on a small hook, and stood idly by as Jack and Angelica sat together on the couch again. there was a bottle of amber scotch by the arm. Jack took it, poured some for him and Angelica, and then relaxed.

"How was your day?" she asked.

"Ehh," Jack replied.

"I heard you caught him," Angelica said absentmindedly.

"Who?"

"Arthur Ipecac, silly. So did you?"

"Yeah."

Jack drank the drink he'd poured for himself, and put his arm around Angelica's shoulders. Tonight she was wearing a white lacy shawl over her torso, a white lacy skirt, and absolutely nothing else. Her lightly tanned skin pressed against Jack, and he allowed himself to relax. He was with the woman he loved, and he was content.

He glanced down at Angelica's midriff. There were signs of pregnancy already; the abdomen was slightly round, betraying the presence of the fetus within, the fetus that Jack had already decided a name for.

"How was yours?" he asked Angelica.

"Pretty bleh," Angelica replied, and giggled. "Paperwork... stuff I had to approve. And the fire department keeps breaking the front windows of shops and things by accident, and I had to step in today when old Mrs. Dane's flower shop was run into by an engine and give a formal apology from Robloxity. Mind you, I don't have anything against Mrs. Dane, but there was a lot of squabbling all round and she kept asking why I'd brought my squad. For protection, see."

"Protection, yeah," Jack muttered. "Uh, listen, I've gotta tell you something. I'll be... gone for a while. Maybe a few months."

"Where?" Angelica asked.

"Official mission," Jack explained. "I'll be in deep space for help with a planetary conquest. Honestly, I don't know why it's a mission, or why I have to go. Nobody's told me anything about what we're up against. There are bits of the file Builderman gave me that're locked."

"Yeah, I'd complain," Angelica commented. "Honestly, you're part of the mission, why'd they hide the dangers?"

Jack thought.

"Maybe it's because they don't know the dangers," he said. "Y'know, people say space is just a big mystery ready to be unwrapped, but not to cut yourself with the scissors."

"People would say that," Angelica agreed. "Just my advice: make sure you're holding the scissors by the handles."

Jack pressed her close. Her short hair brushed against his nose as her head came to rest on his shoulder. Really, Jack thought, she was a plain-looking woman. But she was all the better for it. He snuck a hand to her back, and unfastened the shawl's clasp. With a rustle it fell away, and Angelica laughed.

"Oh, behave yourself," she snarled in playful annoyance.

"Yeah, don't count on it," Jack retorted just as playfully, and pulled her into a kiss. It was long, and passionate, and ended with a kind of wet smacking sound. They pulled away, smiling.

"Y'know, when you're gone, I'll write you," Angelica whispered. She traced a finger down his chest.

"Don't think paper mail's very efficient in space," Jack replied, "but if you're near the long-distance center I'll be in touch."

"Me too," she said, and pushed him back, pinning him to the couch with her hands and leaning in close to catch a frantic kiss, then a longer one. Finally they collapsed into each other.

The folder fell from the couch, and hit the floor with a quiet _click._

-OOO-

The next morning dawned bright and early. The sky was almost pure white, so bright it was. There were clouds, but they were obscured by blinding sunlight. Angelica and Jack had exchanged one more goodbye, over coffee that morning. When it was over they had looked into each other's eyes hungrily, as if this was the last time they'd be together.

"If I don't get back in time," Jack had reminded her, "contact Andes. He's helped deliver babies before."

"Okay," Angelica had replied. "Don't forget to write."

"Honestly," he had said, "do you expect I'll forget."

And she'd said, "No."

And they'd embraced for the last time and parted ways. Jack had called a cab, which had taken him to the newly rebuilt and shiny East End Deposit. The Deposit had been destroyed two years ago by an Associate grunt with a firebomb.

He'd taken the train route that linked him directly to the water bridge that connected New Robloxia to Admin City. Now he sat, listening to the new and updated Robloxian Transit System Mass Transportation Device rattle off news and announcements. This was all just background din as he studied the folder. There were still some files he needed to reread before he embarked on the USS Great Justice. For example, he was now reading a suggested item list. There were mostly weapons.

_USS GREAT JUSTICE  
SUGGESTED ITEM READOUT_

_2 PROJECTILE WEAPONS (GUN OR BOW)  
SHORT-BLADED WEAPON (DAGGER, COMBAT KNIFE, SHORTSWORD)  
LONG-BLADED WEAPON (LINKED SWORD, ADVANCED SWORDS, MACHETE)  
LASER TECHNOLOGY (ARMACHAM TECH, SCREWDRIVERS, ETC.)  
PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT (BODY SHIELD, ARMOR, SHIELDBLOCKS)  
ELECTRONIC SCANNERS (BLOXXY RADAR, ETC.)_

_NOTE THAT THESE ARE MERELY SUGGESTIONS; ADDITIONS AND DEVIATIONS FROM THE ORIGINAL LIST ARE WELCOME UNLESS THEY FALL UNDER THE OVERPOWERED WEAPONS TREATY._

Luckily for Jack, he knew a "reputable" weapons dealer on Admin Island. The two had met during a raid on a drug gang in the main city, and since then had formed a mutual agreement: if the dealer didn't sell Jack crap that didn't work, Jack wouldn't turn him over to Spectre Branch as a conspirator.

The train swerved onto a long set of tracks that stretched over a long area of ocean. Admin Island was dead ahead. The train increased speed, and shot down the tracks. New Robloxia became a blur. The piers vanished quickly under the blistering speed of the vehicle.

A girl with bright blue hair caught Jack's eye, not because of attractiveness (she was very attractive, but Jack was married and therefore impervious) but because of the general strangeness of her garb. She wore an orange band around her wrist, with black trim on it; a black tank top which only served to accentuate her slimness, and cargo pants melding into black combat boots. Unlike the regular commuters on the train, this girl looked like she was going to war. Also, she had a similar file to Jack's, only she had signed it. Jack was never good at cursive, but he could read it. Her name was Tahlia.

She looked up at him. Jack caught himself staring and hastily went back to looking at the file.

"You've got the same file as me," Tahlia said suddenly. Jack started and looked back up at the girl.

"Really?" he said, feigning a questioning tone.

"Yes really," the girl snapped. "Why?"

"Same reason as you," Jack answered. He lowered his voice. _"You're on the mission too. Aren't you?"_

_"Yes," _the girl whispered back. _"Sounds fun to me. You?"_

"Never been to space, myself," Jack admitted. "I can't wait to see it, though. Y'know, deep space seems like a pretty interesting place."

"It's not, really," said Tahlia. "I was born on another planet, I'd know."

"You're an alien?" Jack asked, moving back slightly.

"No, Robloxian, but I wasn't born on this planet," Tahlia explained. "Name's Tahlia, by the way. Tahlia Overseer."

"Overseer? That's a famous name around these parts," Jack observed.

"I know, don't rub it in," the girl muttered. "We're a big family... there's a lot of weird people in it."

"I understand," Jack said, even though he didn't. His father had been the only other one left of the Steel family when his mother died having him.

The train lurched to a stop at the platform of Admin Island. Jack stood up with the rest of the passengers, and disembarked, falling into the long line of people. They traipsed into the outer hallway, then into a sun-filled plaza surrounded with one-story buildings built in a fancy alpine style. Tahlia diverted her path towards a downwards staircase descending into the ground, and Jack followed her. They walked down the long set of stairs, and it gradually became cooler and cooler. Underground, it was damp and chilly, and when Jack stepped out of the stairway he shivered.

Before him was a large and deep pit. It stretched over a mile down under him. The pit was occupied by a massive battleship, its sharp nose facing upwards. Sounds of maintenance echoed from the chasm. Barked commands could be heard. _"Get those damned cargo crates in," _and _"shut that bloody hatch, fool!"_

He found a staircase to his left, and descended it. Tahlia, he saw, was already down on the landing, venturing onto a stone platform bustling with maintenance workers. On the other end of the platform he saw a flash of orange. That was certainly Builderman in his orange hard hat and gray sweatshirt. And to his right... Shedletsky, formerly Telamon? Yes, it had to be. To his left, obviously, was Dusek. But the man beside Dusek, standing with a strict military stiffness, was unknown. The man wore an officer's pressed white shirt and shoulder armor, and he also wore a backwards baseball cap on his head. His chin was shrouded in a black goatee. Underneath his baseball cap, he appeared to be bald.

Jack descended the flight the rest of the way, and made his way through the crowd. He was almost run over by a yellow maintenance buggy, which zipped past speedily and disappeared down an adjacent tunnel. He stopped before Builderman, who gave him a small smile.

"Ah, you're here," he said. "I was worried for a moment you would be absent. And, I see, Miss Tahlia Overseer is here. Hello."

"M'lord." Tahlia curtsied.

"There will be others among you," Builderman informed them. "You know the job you'll perform?"

"Security supervisors, M'lord!" Tahlia butted in almost immediately.

"Very good, Tahlia," the Admin said, nodding. "Yes. As security supervisors, you will see to it that the ship remains in proper working order. No crime, no secret terrorist plots, and certainly no attacks by other vessels."

"Er, certainly not, sir," Jack said. "Not under my watch. You can, er, count on that... sir."

Builderman smiled. "Dusek's given very high praise for you," he said softly. "I know you'll be good. Oh, and by the way, you won't need that dealer fellow you met a year ago. Don't ask me how I know about him, but he's a sly little creature. There's an armory onboard the Great Justice."

There were footsteps from a maintenance corridor. Jack turned to see three people jog out of it and towards them. One of them was a man, of middling height, wearing a blue t-shirt and a red baseball cap. Another was a young woman with pure white hair that was braided carefully down her back. The third was someone who was very familiar to Jack. They had been acquainted before. This man was John Derpston III, chief of the Greenwood Police Department. Jack broke into a grin. They met, shook hands.

"Well well well, Jack Steel," John grinned. "Looks like you've risen in the world, eh?"

"Certainly more than you," Jack rebutted. They laughed. "Good to see you again," Jack said. "What's been happenin'?"

"The GPD just got a new helicopter," John reported. "It was shipped in... uh, 'bout a week ago, and now it's sittin' in the parking lot."

"Who're all these other people?" Jack asked, gesturing to the woman and man.

"Oh, one's a zombie hunter and the other's a security officer from Armacham," John said. The woman brushed past him and held out a hand. She had a high-cheekboned face which put Jack in mind of a predatory cat.

"Helen," she introduced herself. Jack took her hand. It was a slender hand, and a cold one. Jack, looking at her face, noticed the amount of glossy makeup Helen had put around her eyes, and the dark crimson lipstick on her lips.

"My name's Uuom," added the zombie hunter.

"Shut up," the woman said coldly. She released Jack's hand, and turned away. "We all know you. You kill those who are already dead. Dispense with the pleasantries, Builderman. We have a job to do."

"Very well, Helen," Builderman sighed. He nodded to the man in military garb, who reached to a gauntlet on his arm and pressed a small red button. A hatch gently slid open in the side of the ship, and warm orange light spilled out into the dim cavernous space. From the bottom of the hatch, a ramp unfurled, allowing passage into the USS Great Justice.

"What a killjoy," John whispered to Jack.

They walked slowly up the ramp, and into the battleship. The room they were entering was cylindrical, an airlock of sorts. Jack entered the ship, and realized too late that the whole thing was vertical, therefore, hallways became bottomless pits. He fell, grabbed at the side of a doorway, and caught himself, swinging perilously over several flipped eating areas.

"OH CRAP!" he exclaimed. "SOMEONE HELP, THIS SHIP'S ALREADY TRYING TO KILL ME!"

Tahlia sighed, and crossed into the ship. She walked from a completely horizontal surface onto a vertical one as if the vertical surface was another part of the horizontal. Walking down the entryway on the wall that was the floor, she pried Jack off the wall and released him. Jack fell down partway and then fell sideways, smacking his head on the hard tiled floor. He straightened up, looked at everyone. Helen was looking at him with an expression that indicated she was surrounded by idiots and couldn't find a way out.

"The hell's wrong with gravity around here?"

"Damned if I know," John said amiably, passing into the ship. "Come on, I want to see the SPAAACESHIIIP!"

Jack got to his feet, dusted his red longcoat off, and followed John as he stepped into a dining area. The ship's walls were made of pale grayish-blue metal, airbrushed to a dull sheen. The tables were like the kind you'd see in a bar, only not as colorful and bolted to the floor. Several more eating areas followed the first one, then when those ended in a kitchen John stopped and looked around.

"Not bad," he said. "Not too shabby. Hey, the walls actually look good!"

Jack had to agree with him on that point. The walls communicated very well the fact that he was a long way from home. He took the sunglasses out from his coat pocket (he had forgotten he was carrying them until that point) and slipped them on. The readout described quite a few of the things he was seeing in here. For instance, an electric blue clear liquid sitting in a small shot glass on the kitchen counter displayed 87% alcohol content. The glasses also displayed the name of the drink, "Devil's Loo", and that this was the final form of the drink, meaning that this small amount would be enough to make a man die.

"Oh, you're lookin' at the Devil's Loo," Uuom said knowingly. "Had it before. Not enough kick, y'know, doesn't have the right flavor. Not sweet enough. I like _body_ in my drinks, me." He passed over to the shot glass, drained it, looked back at everyone, who was looking at him waiting for him to fall over. Instead, Uuom tipped his hat to them.

"And now gentlemen, ladies," he said, "as my final act, I'll magically make myself disappear!"

He walked whistling out of the room.

"Well, he went fast," John observed.

They continued exploring. There followed a whole series of rooms devoted to regular household things, like cleaning and closets. Then there followed more mechanical rooms. These rooms had a darker theme to them; their airbrushed walls were darker gray, and the floor while still tiled was scuffed and stained. Piping began to blossom from the walls as they moved closer and closer to the ship's engines. Presently, they found themselves at the mouth of a low, long tunnel. The floor was eerily glowing a deep blue.

"Is this where the ship ends?" Jack asked. He knew near-nothing about spaceships.

"No, silly," said Tahlia. "This is a maintenance tube. See that blue strip on the floor? The blue strip propels you in a certain direction. Like this one propels you forward on this side, back on the other."

"So I just lie down and... shimmy along?" hazarded Jack.

"Yeah, right into the tube," she said. "Here, I'll do it first."

She fell to her hands, almost flat-out on the floor, and with her arms pulled herself along the floor in an army crawl. As she neared the maintenance corridor there was a great suction, and she was pulled inside. Jack knelt down and watched her disappear down the tube.

"Looks straightforward," he said to himself, and jumped into the tube.

-OOO-

An hour later, the ship began to rumble. The sounds of preparation had ceased ten minutes before, and now the ship was rising out of the cavern. The ceiling had slid back; water was diverted on either side by transparent walls as the ship rose out of the sea. It was supported on a sort of framework, sandwiched in between two sheets of metal and held in place by the high-friction inner surfaces of those plates. At approximately 8:50 AM, all the little ridges on the metal sheets abruptly folded into a smooth surface, and the rigging tilted to about a 30-degree angle. The huge ship sat on display, like a toy in the window of a shop. Then, with a strange roaring hum, the engines kicked in. Five jets of flame, the largest in the center and four smaller ones around it, lunged from the back of the ship. The vessel began to slide gently up the incline, with only the faintest of scraping noises. When it had reached the end of the incline, the engines guttered, faded out - and exploded back to life. The ship was thrust through the sky at an astounding speed of five-thousand miles-per-hour, tearing into the clouds and disappearing from sight, although not from sound. There was still a screaming bellow of engines, trailing after the ship and making the water froth and bubble.

As Jack watched, in the dining area, through the long side window he saw his home drop away beneath him. New Robloxia, the city more than two thousand square miles in size, was a glimmering swarm of lights that he could hold between his finger and thumb. Robloxity was a dust mote. The great ocean was a little azure puddle. Soon, a round edge began to emerge at the corner of the window. Another soon followed from the other corner.

Robloxia became a sphere wreathed in clouds, greenish-brown land, and deep blue seas. Cities were small yellow specks, towns were invisible. The great polar caps were a dazzling white on the sunny side, glistening dark on the other. Tripfall was a patch up in the far north, a dim shade of mustard yellow. The desert at New Robloxia's east was an ocean of amber.

He was definitely not in Robloxity anymore.


	4. Chapter 4: Space Pirates

_"Space is a bitch."_

_Lt. Cmdr. Bron Squarejaw, speaking to new recruits on Tumeris IX_

The man dressed in officer's garb was the captain of the USS Great Justice, named GoldBC. He had seemed stiff and formal at the launch committee, but now onboard he seemed in his element. From all the medals pinned to his armor, the man was a veteran of several wars including the Second and Third Robloxian Wars.

Right now he was in a long meeting hall, with a long table laid out down the middle and chairs surrounding the table, a cigar clenched between his teeth. He sat at the far end, in a raised seat with the "R" insignia of Robloxia drawn in gold on the back. Jack and the rest of the security delegation sat around the table. There were four dozen, all told, in the comfortable padded swivel chairs. Beside Jack, John was swiveling slowly while listening intently to Gold speaking.

"Whatcha need to understand 'bout space," he was saying, "is that it ain't pretty. A lot o' good people have died in space. Also there're a lot of nasty monsters out there that'd eat ya up in a snap. Debris can ground a small frigate, badly damage a larger one. Heat rays and surprise bursts of solar radiation can really ruin a spacecraft. Now, you're onboard to stop that from happenin'."

Gold took the cigar out of his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke out his nostrils.

"See, out in deep space and 'round the prime resource clusters, the biggest worry we got is space pirates. Now, does anyone here know 'bout space pirates?"

A man in a black and green army uniform raised his hand.

"Space pirates are any band of people in an unknown ship or ships who are openly hostile," the army man recited. "They normally target large space freighters transporting goods from centers of production such as Bela Kalemax and the H'Uatar Nebula, sir!"

"That's a-right," Gold said approvingly. "And I know you got that from the Field Handbook. It's real good to see someone studies it." He reinserted the cigar, and continued talking.

"Yeah, space pirates operate around trade centers. They attack ships that bring stuff out of the planets and do you know why? Either they need it to make a livin', or they're all just audacious little bastards. In either case, the stuff belongs to other people. Out here, crime is still crime."

"How're we going to arrest all those space pirates?" Jack blurted. "There must be a ton of them!"

Gold studied him for a moment with a small measure of contempt gleaming in his eyes. Then he took a puff on the cigar.

"Yeah, I can definitely tell you ain't been offworld before," he sneered. "Here's the deal, pretty boy: in space, criminals aren't arrested. No, we cap their asses. Cap 'em well and good!"

"But, here, hold on," Jack said, squinting. "There are several ordinances that say criminals must be tried in a court of law before being executed. Don't you acknowledge that?"

"Next time," Gold said, "read the small text too."

He laughed.

"Now where was I," he continued. "Space pirates, ehhhh... oh yes, space pirates. I know where I was. So they steal stuff from legitimate businessmen and sell them to illegitimate ones. That's basically space pirates. Oh, and they fight dirty. No honor! They will absolutely _wreck _you if you're off your guard."

Gold waved a hand. The assistant in the corner of the room hastily peeled off his headphones and walked to the back wall, pulling down a thin white plastic sheet from the ceiling. Gold then pressed a button on his wrist gauntlet, and a projector lit up the plastic sheet. The image shown was that of a medium sized blade-like ship, dark brown in color and set against a black background of stars.

"This is the usual model of ship space pirates use," Gold explained. "_Conquistadores. _They can develop a hell of a speed boost in tight circumstances, and have pretty low noise factors. Firepower's low, but the pirates don't care. They usually travel in groups, like I said afore now. And they usually board ships. If y'can snag 'em with artillery, you're in the clear. That's the basics of space pirates. Now," he said purposefully, pressing another gauntlet button, "lessee about our other enemies."

The picture shown next was of a grotesquely fat, bald Robloxian, with eyes of solid green (no whites or pupil). It was a photo of the man's head and shoulders, a portrait view of this fat sack of organs and skin.

"This is Oil Duke Shako Hadad," Gold said. "He's not based in the H'Uatar Nebula, but he's got dealings in every single valuable untapped system. Hadad's got a sort of... private army." He flicked to another slide, showing a grainy photograph of a large fleet of roughly pyramidal ships massing in front of a red cloudy planet. "These are his ships. In a confrontation, the base is the weakest point; aim for that."

He slid a switch on his gauntlet, and the projector shuddered off.

"Okay," he said, "questions? Complaints? Anything?"

None were forthcoming.

"Good," Gold said. "Everyone get out."

-OOO-

The official messenger aboard the USS Great Justice, Phirefox, was a tall gangling man with light green skin, a dark green and white striped jacket, and a green baseball cap. His face was screwed up in the expression of an apprehensive cynic looking for something to ridicule.

Phirefox was a Robloxian filmmaker, who would be called an "indie producer" on any other world. His latest film, "The Selfie", had caught Builderman's attention, and now the Admin had recruited him to be the Great Justice's liaison with Robloxia.

Right now he was speaking to mission control on the third-to-top floor of Admin Tower, from his chambers within the Great Justice's bridge.

_"This is Mission Control,"_ a voice crackled from a speaker above Phire's head. _"State your position, over."_

Phire checked the screens in front of him. The grid in front of him showed a patchwork of small and large asteroids, and one solitary planetoid to the bottom left-hand corner.

"Still approaching the Gate, I guess," he said.

_"Roger." _The voice broke off contact.

The Great Justice sailed through space. Eventually, ahead of it, a small gray ring became visible. The ring became larger. A blue glow emanated from the inside edges of the ring. The Great Justice ground slowly to a halt, and came to a complete stop almost resting its prow inside the ring.

-OOO-

It was a corrugated steel ring , the diameter and circumference of a small planet. Jack, looking from a side window, saw thousands of glittering lights that were all presumably rooms on the Gate's surface. Blue light swirled around them.

He'd never seen anything so bizarre in his life. It was like something out of a shitty Robloxian war movie, only in real life, in front of him, in stunning 3D visuals.

"Looks real good, doesn't it?" Uuom said.

"Damn," was Jack's reply.

"This ring took up two years to construct," Helen cut in.

"Well, that's a hell of a lot of good work for-" Jack began.

"Two _Grand Years,_" snapped Helen.

"Oh," Jack said, embarrassed.

The ring's light began to grow brighter, turning more of an icy blue and flaring all over the dirty transparent plastic. Jack shielded his eyes. It was so bright, brighter than even the most dazzling morning and the palest winter sky...

Something rocked the ship. At the same time, the sound of an explosion came from outside. The light flaring through Jack's eyelids died down suddenly, and there sounded more explosions. He heard people standing up sharply before a hand fell on his shoulder and he opened his eyes. The Gate's southwest region was ablaze. Several powerful shots had been fired, and the framework of the ring was exposed.

A slim, sharp spacecraft sailed past the window, and Jack's eyes followed it in alarm. It was exactly the kind of craft space pirates were reputed to use! Jack stood up sharply just as an alarm sounded and the light turned suddenly red.

"Run!" Helen shouted. They ran down the length of the galley; no sooner had they escaped the room then another pirate craft sailed past and opened fire. Jack heard the room behind him being shredded to pieces, and frighteningly the sound was drawing nearer. He increased his speed, his brain in panic mode.

They arrived in the bridge just five minutes later, and saw GoldBC standing purposefully in front of the transparent windshield. The space pirates had amassed into a large cloud facing them from the other side of the dormant Gate. Gold drew in a deep pull on the cigar.

"This is fucking audacious of them," he growled. "That there Gate's Robloxian property. Why'd they attack Robloxia's direct territory?"

He swiveled in his chair, and saw the group.

"Well, what in Admin's name are you waiting for?" he barked. "Go assemble some strike teams in the hangar or something! We need to meet 'em face to face, and someone's got to fix the Gate!"

Tahlia nodded. "C'mon," she ordered, "follow me and we'll set up some ship formations."


	5. Chapter 5: The Battle of the Gate

_"Tell me when you've reached the far side of space, and I'll give you the disheartening news that space is infinite. I'm an eternal killjoy, and that helps me survive."_

_1x1x1x1, Grand Year 2007, speaking to Builderman on a mountain peak_

The battle began in earnest after the two sides met. The USS Great Justice's offering was ten-dozen small assault fighters. The space pirates had not taken this very well. They had immediately opened fire upon the host, and the Justice's fighters had to split as quickly as they could. Regardless, twenty-three fighters were lost.

Jack swerved to avoid a pirate fighter, and made a swift U-turn to tail it. He reached for the joystick at his side, and distended it from its casing. Two small laser cannons on the nose of the craft swiveled as he moved the joystick to target the pirate fighter. A press of the trigger, and two jets of orange streaked out, catching the pirate craft on the wing. Part of the wing flaked off and fell away into space. The enemy fighter swerved and flew upwards. Jack did the same, following it farther up and up. He fired another shot, which this time hit the right flank. Part of the very wall disintegrated, and Jack saw the pilot sitting in a flat blue seat, hands glued to the controls.

He aimed for the pale head, saw for a brief instant between the crosshairs the pilot's face pulled back in a careless grin. Then the pirate ship was struck again by a laser blast, and fractured, splitting down the middle, and leaving the pilot to freefall.

A few moments later, another two pirates pulled up on either side of him. The side windows facing inwards rolled down, and both pilots emerged carrying some sort of outlandish projectile weapon. Whatever this weapon was, it had a red warhead affixed to the barrel, and looked like a long steel pipe with multiple tubes at the back. Jack concentrated on the pirates' trigger fingers. When he judged that they were almost ready to fire, he pushed sharply down and his fighter descended in a nosedive. Above him there was an explosion as the pirates' shots found each other and reacted accordingly. When Jack had reached the vicinity of the main battle, he leveled out and joined the others.

_"You idiot!" _It was Helen, squawking at him through his console speaker. _"You led them right to you!"_

"I did?" Jack asked, making a point of avoiding her fighter.

_"Space pirates pick off stragglers! Don't you do any research?! Yes, you led them to you, you colossal dumbass!"_

"My bad," Jack said sarcastically. "I'll just stay here and get shot to death, shall I?"

No reply was forthcoming. Jack put his ship on full stop, and surveyed the scene. Thirty pirate fighters and forty-five Great Justice fighters were skirmishing in a great swarm near the Gate.

"I'm joining the skirmish," he reported to GoldBC on the bridge.

_"Fine with me," _was the reply.

He entered the fray, focusing on pirate ship after pirate ship, mainly assisting those who were in the thick of it. He had trained in helicopter piloting a little after the Associates incident, and he learned of a concept in the piloting community called "Forward" and "Assist". Forwards were the main line of defense against the enemy, and Assists were the backup guys. Assists were supposed to stay alive for as long as they could while sufficiently weakening more powerful foes so the Forwards could take them.

He related this topic to his squadmates, and soon Assists were chosen from among the skilled pilots. Jack led the Assists on a ten-minute solid dive-bombing run amongst the enemy ranks, then split the group into two and began relaying orders. Jack had seen this done once, on an old sci-fi show he used to watch as a kid: they would collect a chain of asteroids using well-placed antimatter mines, and then lead those asteroids into the ranks of the enemy. The squad immediately set to work, dodging laser fire and dropping antimatter mines at strategic locations in a nearby asteroid cluster.

-OOO-

Watching from the bridge, GoldBC saw the antimatter mines being dropped by the deviant ships. He turned to a monitoring officer beside him, sitting at a panel.

"What's happenin' out there," he asked.

"They've split into two groups," the monitoring officer replied. "One's more stealthy and the other's just taking and giving fire, sir."

"Interesting..." Gold leaned the seatback down on his captain's chair. "I reckon those're Spectre Branch tactics... do we have a Spectre agent on the passenger list?"

The monitoring officer bent over his panel, and pressed a series of buttons. A list of passengers was displayed, and the monitoring officer sifted through them until he found one name.

"Yes, there is a Spectre agent onboard. His name's Jack Steel. Why do you ask?"

"Gimme that panel," Gold snapped. He shoved the officer out of his seat and commandeered the panel. He zoomed in on the agent's bio.

NAME: JACK  
BORN: LATE GRAND MONTH DECEMBER, GRAND YEAR 2012  
GENDER: MALE  
AFFILIATION: ROBLOXIA, SPECTRE BRANCH  
FINANCES: 1,570 R$, 99 tX, 65 PP  
MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED

SUMMARY: JACK STEEL, FORMER RPD OFFICER AND NOW A HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL SPECTRE BRANCH AGENT, IS ONE OF THE POSTER-BOYS OF ROBLOXIA'S RESURGENCE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE. HE HAS RECIEVED PERSONAL COMMENDATION FROM OVER HALF THE ADMINS AS WELL AS SOME HIGH-RANKING ARISTOCRATS AND POLITICIANS.

Gold's face fell. He stood up from the panel. He remembered something someone had said to him offhand, about this Steel. Something that chilled him. Something completely unacceptable.

"That's all I wanted to know," he said. He relinquished the panel to the officer, and sat back down heavily in his seat.

-OOO-

Jack fell back with his squad, and ordered them to get in a line behind him, with spacing of fifty blox between each person. These spaces, he explained, would be where the asteroids would form into a line. Then he ordered all the antimatter mines detonated at once. There followed a series of reverse-explosions, during which small herds of asteroids began to gravitate towards the fifty-blox gaps. His plan was working, Jack thought. And here he'd been under the impression that this was something that only worked on TV!

He led the group stealthily towards the skirmish. As he did so, Helen contacted him again.

_"Steel, report! Where'd you go?"_

"Just initiating Plan B," Jack said. "Nothing to worry about, ma'am."

He stayed in the shadow of a huge space rock almost the size of a small moon just to the left side of the gate. He watched, and waited, peering around the side of the rock at the battle. Rolling down his side screen, he leaned out and surveyed the scene.

"On my mark," he whispered to his squad, "we go out from behind this rock and send 'em packing!"

_"Aye."_

_"Sounds like a plan, sir."_

_"Ready when you are!"_

_"Are you single?"_

"NOW!" Jack shouted. He veered out of the shadow of the rock, and as his squad and all the collected asteroids fell in behind him he increased speed, heading straight towards the pirates. The Great Justice's ships were prepared. They scattered away from the flight path of the ships. The line bore down on the pirates, who were trying to turn tail and flee. But it was too late, far too late to run. "PULL UP," Jack barked, and as the ships did so the asteroids, freed from the pull of the ships, sailed into the ranks of space pirates. Ships were tossed around like ragdolls as they disintegrated. Those rocks that did not hit a target on the initial run were bumped and jostled so as to hit more pirate ships, and the destruction ballooned out from there within the ranks

_"Oh, so that's where you were," _Helen said. _"I might just have underestimated you, Jack Steel!"_

"You might have at that," Jack agreed. "Although really the whole thing was all luck. They just _happened_ to be fighting in one concentrated area."

_"Still, you're no slacker at least," _Helen replied. Then: _"Enemy fighter docking at the ring. Looks larger than the other ones."_

Jack looked over at the gaping wound in the side of the Gate. Sure enough, there sat a large fighter that almost looked like a hovercraft.

"How did we not notice that?" he asked to nobody in particular.

_"It must have been cloaked," _Helen theorized. _"C'mon Steel, we've got work to do!"_

They flew towards the Gate. As they drew nearer, small arms fire from the wound seared past them. Jack saw about ten pirates in identical brown sleeveless uniforms firing what looked like semi-automatic rifles at the Assists. Only instead of bullets, these weapons shot laser beams. He banked down, and took a bombing run, spraying the wound with laser fire. Several pirates were flung against the back wall and bounced out into space, flailing and screaming. The rest turned and fled deeper into the Gate's mechanics.

"Blast," Jack swore. "Okay, someone bomb the enemy ship and then we'll park in that spot."

The fighter was demolished by several waves of lasers. Helen was first to park. Jack saw her disembark and stand waiting for them. He pulled in behind her, put the ship into park mode, and pushed the transparent hood up. Getting out, he tested his footing on the ring's interior. It seemed stable enough. John hopped out beside him.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Jack replied.

They looked into the darkness beyond only disrupted by the glowing of the few intact generators. Jack unholstered the shiny gun, and held it in front of him, testing the balance while aiming, making sure everything was up to scratch.

"Everyone needs a flashlight," Helen ordered. "If you don't have one right now, look in the back compartment of your fighter. You'll find a slide-on gun attachment. Steel, Derpston, you're with me."

"Yes ma'am," John said, a little disappointed. As they followed her into the Gate's gutted interior, he whispered to Jack, "Why couldn't I just go all Punisher on those pirate's asses?"

"Beats me," Jack whispered back. "It would've made perfect sense. Remember when that guy stormed Admin Tower last Grand Year? Yeah, that worked out."

"But he fell out a window," John hissed.

"No, he jumped," Jack argued. "He survived, made it all the way to Center Station in another man's car. Totally Punisher. QED."

"Will you two stop arguing back there," Helen suddenly said harshly. "I think I heard something in that duct over there!" She pointed to a grate on the far side of the chamber. There was, indeed, a faint scraping coming from the duct. Helen drew a small dagger from her side sheath, and crept cautiously towards the grate. With a sudden violent ululation of "HAIIII-YOM!" she leaped sideways and made several violent jabs between the wires of the grate. Something screeched on the other side, and fell against the grate (which flew off its duct and clanged to the floor). Helen inspected the corpse in the duct, then straightened, shaking her head.

"It's just a Void Monster," she said. "The place is probably infested with them. Be on your guard."

"Void Monster?" Jack asked.

"They're an offshoot of the Noobs," Helen explained. "Very swift, very dangerous, and their fingers are elongated like claws. One of those can tear you to ribbons in a swipe. Now come on or they'll come down on us like a hive of bees!"

Jack, on careful consideration of the room around him, heard soft scraping coming from the ceiling. He looked up, saw a brief dark red flash. He moved from that area into one with a lower ceiling. "Urgh," he grunted.

Something made a clanking noise in a tube-filled corridor to the Northeast. Jack and the rest froze. Helen put a finger to her lips, and craned to hear.

From the corridor, a hushed voice hissed, _"Damn it, Ebb, you'll give us away! Stop swingin' your gun or I'll knife you and leave you for the beasts!"_

_They're in there, _Helen mouthed.

The group cautiously crept to the mouth of the passage, weapons drawn. John held his Sig Sauer below his chest; he had a signature shoot-from-the-hip combat style that was usually quite hard to pull off with a pistol. Helen was carrying the dagger from before, plus another from her other side. Jack kept the shiny gun out in front of him, part of his jacket swept over it to stop a stray light ray from glinting off it and giving them away.

As they entered the corridor they saw ahead of them a slightly open door with light pouring from the crack. They flattened themselves against the wall, crept ever closer to the door. Then they burst through it and immediately opened fire. The pirates inside had barely enough time to draw their weapons and duck behind some piping. Bullets ricocheted off the walls.

Jack remembered a time two years ago, on his first day with Spectre Branch, when Namek (now Clockwork) had shown him how to shoot. They had been following reports of a terrorist attack on a market square, and the ensuing gunfight had taught Jack the basics of projectile warfare: never let your guard down, and find a cover system if you have no choice. He had a cover system now, a mid-sized control terminal that shielded him from the lasers of the pirates.

Which all of a sudden stopped.

Jack peered round the edge of the terminal. The pirates had retreated backwards, and drawn swords. One pirate also carried a small hand grenade, which he held so tight his knuckles were white. There was, on closer observation of the room, a fuel tank in a closet at the far wall. The grenade pirate made a few hand signals, and the pirates formed a long line that blocked access to the fuel tank and the man with the grenade.

_"It's a common space pirate tactic,"_ Helen whispered. _"They're gonna drive us out with swords and destroy their target."_

"Swords shouldn't fuck with shotgun shells, bitches," Jack growled, rising to his feet. He aimed at the pirates with the shiny gun, flicked a switch on the side. The barrel widened to allow passage of shotgun ammo. The pirates looked at him, and one of them ventured, "Shouldn't ya be runnin', idiot?"

"Nah," said Jack, "I gave up on that crap ages ago."

He shot the laughing man in the chest. The shotgun pellets went straight over and under the sword, launching him backwards and slamming the dead man against the grenade pirate, knocking them both to the floor.

"FIRE, EVERYONE!" he ordered. The rest of his squad popped up from their cover sources and completely mangled the room. Walls were riddled in bullet holes in under ten seconds, and pirates fell like bowling pins, spurting blood. Jack lunged to the side, fired at a retreating pirate, but the man had already disappeared with a rocket launcher over his shoulder.

"He's got a launcher!" John shouted over the din of gunfire.

"I know," Jack shouted back, "but we can't follow him!"

"Why not? That'd be totally Punisher!"

"Punisher's none of our business right now!"

Jack rushed forward through the smoke, casings, fallen swords, and bodies. He took one look at where the man with the rocket launcher was hiding, then retreated very fast on his heels backwards as the man charged at them. The rocket man stopped, knelt, and fired off a projectile which smashed into the floor and blew up in a billowing orange conflagration. Jack only just dived away from it in time not to get his spine embedded in his hypothalamus.

"Run!" he yelled. They ran as another rocket whistled past their ears.

The group made it back to the docking area, and hastily began to climb into their ships. Jack caught John by the shoulder as the latter was entering his ship.

"Hey," he said. "Listen, you run back to the ship and tell 'em I'll be a little bit late to return, okay?"

"Right," John said, nodding in affirmation. He pulled the hood of his fighter down, and quickly joined the others as they headed back for the ship. Jack stayed behind, watching the rocketeer emerge from the darkness to stand illuminated in the cold blue light of the generators.

"Hey, asshole," Jack taunted. "You gonna put down that giant dick and fight me like a man?!"

The pirate snarled.

"I'll blow you to bloody giblets," he cried, raising the rocket launcher.

"You seem experienced with massive dicks," Jack continued unabated as the rocketeer began to turn red in anger. "Past experience, maybe? Of course it could just be self-practice. Am I prying?"

He hated to stoop to such lows as dick jokes. Usually he delivered a witty one-liner and was off with another successful mission. But this pirate looked impervious to one-liners. He did, however, have the look of a highly macho man (Jack dealt with these in the criminal underworld all the time) whose sexuality had been questioned. The pirate gritted his teeth, and snarled again.

"Put the penis down," Jack chided, as a final touch.

"If I do, I'll kick you in the bollocks," the pirate threatened.

"Oh, you wouldn't do that if you want to keep yours," Jack advised. "Even though, truth be told, you don't have enough bollocks to fill a-"

The pirate suddenly charged at him, arms open and ready to plough Jack off the edge of the Gate. But this was what Jack was awaiting all along. With a careful sideways motion, making sure not to betray any uncertainty, he sidestepped. The pirate, caught in his own momentum, skidded off the edge on the balls of his feet, and plummeted with a furious and humiliated scream.

"-nutshell," Jack finished, as he stooped over to watch the body fall.

He dusted off his hands, walked over, picked up the rocket launcher with effort, and lugged it off the edge to fall with the pirate. Then he climbed gingerly into his fighter, and set a course for the Great Justice. As he neared the warship, he observed the pockmark blasted into the side by that first attack, and the multiple burn marks covering the hull. That, he presumed, would be what was defined as a "narrow victory." But if it weren't for their enemy's stupidity and hive mind tactics, he was sure that the victory wouldn't just have been narrow; it would've been closed.


	6. Chapter 6: Repairs and Murder

_THE EXECUTION INTERVIEW OF RAJID HADAD, THE OIL DUKE_

_Q: What lead you to the crimes you have most certainly committed? _

_A: Simply the fact, my dear dissenter, that the universe is what is known as a "pie", and that we, in a simply metaphorical sense, need a slice of it._

_Q: So the whole thing was about... power?_

_A: Yes. I must confess, it was indeed power, resources, finances, and all those other things. Mainly it came from the monopoly on Tanan Oil, as you must surely know._

_Q: For the uninitiated, Tanan Oil is...?_

_A: Tanan Oil is the thin, runny residue created when extreme heat coalesces with certain sands. Now, all the systems I have subjugated are full of planets with that particular kind of sand, known as Black Sand. Tanan Oil is the substance with which new Robloxians are created. A pregnant mother consumes two Tanan Pills per day; spawn machines have tanks in which a pre-formed embryo is saturated with Tanan Oil mixed with water. Many cloning processes use Tanan Oil and the genetic material of a particular subject to create multiple copies of the subject. So you see, he who controls the substance controls the universe._

_Q: Interesting. I swear I've heard that somewhere before... uh, anyhow, do you have anything to say before we give you the banhammer?_

_A: One thing: my legacy will continue. My vast Oil Empire will be continued under my son. My conquests will not be forgotten. The Hadad family will maintain control over Tanan Oil for the rest of known time._

_Q: Do you not know that now the Robloxian Administrators will have this interview in their data libraries henceforth?_

_A: Yes. And I am glad of that. It will give my son a reputation that will strike fear into the Admins, and ensure my son will keep his seat on my throne!_

Fadiris strode briskly down the long corridor, pillars to his left, a solid stone wall to his right. The dark violet sky of Oxiaris held in its grip a small watery-looking sun, of a sickly blue color. This sun barely illuminated the planet's surface, and so the Hadad Keep on Oxiaris's Danib Mesa was almost perpetually lit. All else was darkness save for the red glow coming from lava fields on the far horizon.

Fadiris was the designated governor of the Oxiaris Keep, and therefore was the designated governor of Oxiaris itself under order of the Duke. He was very tall and thin, bald except for a ring of blue hair around his skull, and had small blue eyes that surveyed everything with equal suspicion. Today, his skeletal body was clothed in long white fabric, with blue and gold embroidery around the edges. This was a special gesture; usually, he wore but a strict black and gray Hadad military uniform, with the moon-orbiting-planet insignia on the right sleeve, and the badge giving his rank as the governor pinned to his lapel. Today, the Duke was coming. The Duke himself was coming to inspect his Tanan output!

He exited the corridor, and entered the formal landing plaza. In the middle of the plaza was a large square platform, of about 2,500 square meters in size. This platform had clamps at the north, south, west, and east sides, to hold down a landed Hadad Pyramid Command Craft (HPCC). Fadiris walked to a small stone-block building, in which technicians checked switches and panels gave off a monotone hum.

The chief technician, Bronnal, stood up quickly when he entered, and saluted, lightly dazing himself with a flat hand to the temple.

"Everything's going smoothly, sir!" he reported.

"Hopefully," snapped Fadiris, "you are right. I know the Duke doesn't like landing failures."

"I heard about the whole Taiko XVI thing too, sir," Bronnal said. "This time, the clamps actually work, sir!"

"Good," Fadiris replied. He sat down in a chair facing a long, narrow window that allowed him to see outwards towards the landing array. He twiddled his thumbs nervously.

Meanwhile, far above the landing area, a massive spacecraft hovered in the sky. It was shaped like a pyramid, with a base that corresponded exactly with the dimensions of the pad below. Around it were several smaller pyramids that served as an escort to the great Shako Hadad himself. They were currently affixing tractor beams to the larger ship's hull, and beginning to guide it down to the landing pad.

Fadiris saw it coming from his seat. He saw the great ship descend, surrounded by those small pyramids, and gently coast towards the ground. He observed how the clamps began to fold into their landing positions, controlled by the sure hands of the technicians under Bronnal's command. The HPCC landed in the square pad, and adjusted its position with side boosters that alternately flared and extinguished. Then the clamps folded into place, holding the ship down, and the huge bottom engine flickered off.

Fadiris held his breath.

A set of big double doors at the front of the craft slowly swung open. Blinding white light poured out. Then people began to disembark. There were Hadad guardsmen, more technicians, ambassadors in flowing purple robes, aides, noblemen. In the center of the rank was a litter that floated seemingly by itself, and inside the litter staring out with green-on-green eyes at the proceedings was Oil Duke Shako Hadad. Fadiris hastily scuttled out of the technician's building, and stood at the front of his small host party made up of more Hadad guards and a few generals. The Oil Duke's entourage stopped about twenty blox away, and the ranks parted to allow the litter to glide towards Fadiris and halt just in front of him.

Fadiris bowed.

"Your Excellence, Duke Hadad, Master of the Tanan," he whispered reverently.

A fat hand reached out into the light from the deep shadows of the litter, and placed itself on Fadiris's shiny bald head.

"Fadiris." The voice of Duke Shako Hadad was smooth as satin, as deep as a sinkhole, with faux syrupy tones that masked every word he spoke. "My dear Fadiris. Show me your progress. Allow my guards to escort us. I eagerly await to see your output."

"At once, Your Excellence," Fadiris said, trying to keep the trembling out of his voice.

-OOO-

At the victory party later that day, as the Gate was being repaired by part of the Robloxian space fleet, Jack was pulled aside by Captain GoldBC, who had a worried look on his face. Jack had been calmly drinking some scotch when Gold had come up to him and whispered to him that his presence was needed. Now, Gold and Jack stood in a corner, away from prying ears.

"What is it, sir?" asked Jack.

"No need to call me sir in this setting," Gold replied. "Hey, listen, somethin' important I gotta tell you. There's a rumor goin' round that you're gonna be murdered."

Jack stiffened.

"Who's gonna murder me?" he asked sharply.

"I don't know," Gold said. "I was told by one of the crew."

"Which one?"

"He walked away fast after he told me," Gold said. "I didn't catch his ID."

"Well, can you do me a favor and keep watch for... say, knives that shouldn't be there?" Jack asked.

"I'll do that," Gold promised. They walked back into the victory celebration, and immediately Uuom looked at them and raised his glass of blue liquor.

"To our victor," he slurred, "to missssster Jacksteelll yeah!" He downed the glass and immediately poured himself another one.

"We're very grateful for your plan out there," Tahlia said as Uuom began to drink his drink and slopped some over his Epic Duck steak. "I think that may have saved all our lives."

"Ehhh, no need to thank me," Jack said, blushing slightly. He slapped himself mentally for blushing, reminding himself of Angelica waiting back home with his son. "But thanks anyways," he added.

Helen flashed a smile in his direction, a brief and brittle one. She did not seem like one who smiled frequently. Then she went back to her food.

Jack sat down at the table beside John, who slapped him on the back.

"That was the most badass thing I've ever seen," he exclaimed. "Seriously, you just stood there in front of that guy, then he just sort of... charged right off the edge!"

"I exploited his stupidity," Jack explained absentmindedly, skewering some steak and bringing it to his place. "I do it all the time in field work."

"Me too," John said, grinning. As the tempo of eating increased, he went on, "I once had to deal with this guy... this was about two years ago, mind you, and I got him to blow himself up with his own shotgun. The slugs exploded," he added. "Not the gun. The shells in the gun exploded. The gun did not explode. Yeah." He scooped up the bottle of vodka and poured some into a shot glass. Mixing it with some of the sweet blue powder in a bowl nearby, he watched it swirl and permeate within the drink. Steam began to rise from the drink.

"What's that drink?" Jack asked, wanting to get the conversation away from the victory.

"Oh, it's a Greenwood Town thing," John explained. "It doesn't really have a defined name, but we call it 'Gun Sweat'. Don't know why." He offered the shot glass to Jack. "Want some?"

"Er, no thanks," Jack said. "I've already got scotch." He drank a bit of the amber liquid to demonstrate. Then, a sudden thought striking him, he leaned closer to John and whispered, _"Do you have one of those clip-on security cameras?"_

_"Oh, those?" _John whispered back. _"Yeah, I brought them in my jacket pocket. Want one?"_

_"Yeah." _Jack held out his hand under the table, and John passed him the camera, a small cylinder of metal about a centimeter in length.

_"What's the matter?" _John inquired, concerned.

_"Someone's planning to murder me," _Jack answered.

_"Do you know who?"_

_"No, and besides, why didn't they just shoot me down during the space battle?"_

_"Maybe this murderer's been playing too many murder simulations. Murder Mystery's a growing phenomena! So is The Mad Murderer. All basically clones."_

_"Yeah, I know. That's where most of the recent underworld crime comes from." _Jack took another sip of his scotch. _"Mind you," _he said, a thought crossing his mind, _" we could probably find the murderer really easily. This ain't New Robloxia, it's a spaceship. It's not really that big, there aren't many places to hide."_

_"Agreed."_

_"And those cameras - when we find our rooms, we can place them above our doors."_

_"Good plan."_

They straightened, resumed eating and normal dinner conversation.

At about 7:35 PM, much later than scheduled, the repairs on the Gate were complete. The large Robloxian frigates and battleships turned around and headed back for the planet behind them, now the size of a marble. The Great Justice slowly advanced forward until it was resting inside the Gate, facing outwards into the dark space beyond. The blue glow around the inside edge of the Gate faded into being again.

_"ATTENTION," _said a voice on the ship's communication system. _"ATTENTION. WE WILL BE MAKING THE JUMP TO MINIMUM RENDER IN ONE MINUTE. PLEASE PREPARE FOR THE JUMP BY FOCUSING ON AN OBJECT AND HOLDING FOCUS UNTIL THE JUMP OCCURS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION."_

The ship was silent and still within the ring; then, a minute later, the engines at the back exploded to life, and the clear scenery of space was replaced with large blotches that would, if you squinted, resemble space. The ship was thrust heavily forwards out of the ring, disappearing into the darkness beyond. Render quality returned to normal. The Gate's fires died down.

An odd note about space and time in the Robloxian universe: the lower the visibility (or render distance), the higher the speed, the shorter the time takes from the renderer's perspective. Likewise, those outside the low-render zone see the journey as taking longer than it does. Therefore, time speeds up within a low-render zone. In places like Venezia or New Robloxia, where the huge amount of urban development around the city areas drops the framerate to a medium-low speed, people live longer because their bodies have adapted to live normal lifespans in a slower than normal environment. This phenomena is called the Builderman Altered Time Theorem, because the Admin himself discovered it when the first spacecraft was sent from Robloxia to one of its moons.

The Theorem was in full affect during the flight of the Great Justice. Since the ship was at the lowest possible render distance, it was therefore flying at a speed slightly underneath the speed of code itself. Later estimates by Robloxian historians show that while the journey took only a week by the standards of the travelers, six months went by on New Robloxia.

Enough time for the social order to break right down.


	7. Chapter 7: Darkness of Render Space

_"Being alone in deep space is one of the most horrible things in this universe."_

_Anonymous space traveler, Grand Year 2011_

Helen stood on an exterior ledge peering out at the stars rushing past. She leaned against a railing, looking at the unfocused scenery as it flashed across her vision

Someone walked onto the ledge she was on, approached her. She did not bother to look, radiating supreme disinterest, keeping up her sharp, haughty demeanor. The person stopped right next to her, leaned on the railing as well, looked out.

"Sure is awesome, isn't it?"

She recognized that voice: John, chief of the GPD or so she had been told.

"Big space," John said, awed. "Biiiig space. A lot of people haven't thought about how big space really is..."

"What do you want," Helen snapped.

"Nothin', nothin'. Just... standing outside." Helen turned her head to look at John. John's dark brown hair was unkempt, his white dress shirt wrinkled. He looked back at her, and a small smile came unto his lips.

"If you want to talk to someone," she hissed, "go to the club. I'm not available." She turned her head back.

"Aw." John shifted slightly. "I just wanna talk and stuff."

"Go talk to a computer, you'll get more out of them than me."

She folder her arms.

"Well, someone's grumpy," John remarked.

"You've no idea," she quipped back.

"What's wrong?" John asked.

"Shut up," she growled.

"Seriously," John said. "It might help. I was a junior psychologist before I was a policeman. Trust me on this."

"You probably weren't very good," Helen retorted.

"No seriously, it helps if you talk," John insisted. "Really. I feel a lot of things you're keeping to yourself, and they're hurting you. You're brittle, quick to anger, irritable. Soon you'll burst because you're keeping all this... this stuff inside you and you don't want to release it."

"I don't know why I listen to you," she said. "You're... not helping!"

"Please," John said, softly, placing a larger hand on her small thin one. "Please. Just say it. I hate to see you suffer this way."

Helen bit her tongue. John's delivery had struck something inside her, and now she had to fight back her words. She gritted her teeth. Then she gave in to the words.

"I am in mourning," she said in a brittle voice. "My father. He - he... he was taken from me." She fought back tears. No tears, she reminded herself, sticking to her self-imposed image of toughness. No tears. Do not show your sorrow.

"Ah." John patted her hand. "Who... what took him?"

"I... don't know," she said. "It was in the middle of the night. My father was... in the fields... and then he was gone."

"Was he your only family?"

"My mother died only that last year," she confirmed. "In the Second Robloxian War. A shelling by FEAR's forces. She was part of the peace envoy on Rokan."

"And your dad, I guess, provided for you?"

"Yes. After he died, I left my town to find some... new life. And I gave myself... psychological shielding, to preserve my grief. I was naturally good at... you know, small mechanical jobs, and eventually I was hired by Armacham, which was now a legitimate company and allied with the new friendly FEAR. I rose up the ranks... and now I'm here." Helen shrugged.

"So you have a tragic backstory, and you rose from humble beginnings to... well, this," John summarized. "Do you want to find whoever captured your father?"

"Yes." Helen spat over the edge of the railing. "And when I find my father's captor, I will kill him. No questions asked. The blood of my enemies will seal my revenge."

"Revenge is a funny thing," John said. "It tears lives and worlds apart, or so people say."

"So people say," Helen echoed.

"Well, I advise you think about what you're doing." John released her hand. "Honestly, I'd hate to see your life ruined. It'd be sad."

"I won't," Helen said. She turned away, and on her way back into the ship looked back and said: "I'll have cleansed the universe when I'm through." Then she was gone.

-OOO-

Jack sat in his room, near the left stabilizer wing of the Great Justice. He was staring at a screen unfolded from a wall, on which was a display of a circle alternating between red and blue, which was a loading bar of sorts. This screen was a communications patch to New Robloxia, right to one of the many FaceTime booths around the city. The communication was delayed until a connection was established between the two machines, which during low-res flight was a long time due to relative speeds and resolution.

The loading bar faded away, and a grainy picture faded onto the screen in its place. It was Angelica's face, set against the white inside wall of the booth. She smiled when she saw him.

"Hey honey," he said.

_"Hey,"_ she replied.

They exchanged virtual hugs, and then stared at each other for a few seconds. Angelica, Jack noticed, was looking slightly harrowed; there were beads of sweat on her forehead, and her hair was unkempt.

"How was your day?" Jack asked.

_"Day? It's been twenty-six of 'em."_ Angelica laughed. _"Just a time delay."_

"I haven't heard about that," Jack said. "Anyways, my day was... okay. Boarded, saw the Low-Res Gate, fought off some space pirates, had a party - and someone's aching to murder me."

_"Murder you? Why?"_

"Dunno," Jack said, shrugging. "John's given me a security cam. It's on another monitor right now." He gestured to his right, where there was another screen folded out of the wall, showing an empty corridor.

_"Well, I hope you pull through,"_ she replied. _"My days were pretty odd. Just a week ago, there were these huge ships in the sky. Right now they're somewhere over Tripfall, or so I've heard. Builderman's declared a period of caution, because those ships are allegedly Vaktovian Badanovs."_

Jack froze. Badanovs! The Vaktovians had long stayed away from Robloxia, but everyone knew of their terror. Everyone, at one point in their lives had seen the archived footage of the last Vaktovian war. It changed them. Jack remembered that day in his school when his class had to do a report on the footage. In the middle of the montage, one boy started crying and had to be dragged out of the room.

"Only allegedly, right?" Jack felt very worried. "Allegedly Vaktovians, right? They don't look like Badanovs?"

_"I don't know, Jack," _Angelica replied. _"Look, if they attack, I'll go to one of the safe centers below ground level, okay? If our baby is born in a bunker, so be it, as long as the baby is born at all."_

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "The baby is everything."

_"Listen, I have to go. The air raid siren just went off. Love you!"_

"Love you too," Jack whispered.

The feed turned off, and Jack switched the screen off and folded it back into its crevice. Then he stood up from his bed, which he had been sitting on during the conversation, and walked over to the small adjoining washroom next to him. There he opened a cabinet, and found a small can of shaving cream and a rack of razors. Slathering the cream on his jaw, he began to scrape at the stubble that had built up over a period of two days, ever since he had captured Arthur Ipecac.

A flickering movement caught his eye.

He stopped shaving, and listened closely. Reflected in the top left corner of the mirror was a tiny, tiny sliver of blue plastic, hovering around like an insect. It emitted a faint static noise, almost too low for the ear to detect.

He knew this device. It was called a Slice. It was a remote-controlled killing machine with a small industrial-strength heat beam built into it, able to be guided around corners and through tight spaces with pinpoint accuracy, and move about a crowded room with such stealth as to be undetectable. Jack stayed still, did not move a muscle as the Slice probed the room with a small crystal-glass eye. Not moving was key to surviving a Slice attack. The Slice came closer and closer to his ear, making that annoying subsonic whine it was so iconic for.

The Slice slowly passed in front of his eyes, and it took great effort not to track it. If he _had _tracked it, the Slice would seize upon the movement and kill him with one well-placed blast of the heat beam. Blue plastic inched past, gleaming. Jack saw the eye at the front rolling around, scanning, scanning, scanning for him but not finding him because it was designed for moving targets.

The Slice exited the room, and Jack could now follow it with his eyes, see it move silently into the bedroom.

When had he first seen a Slice? Ahh, yes, it was five months ago. A wealthy banker he was protecting had almost been assassinated. Luckily, Jack had Hamburg with him at the time, and Hamburg had guided him as the Slice was bearing down on the sleeping banker. And then... what had Hamburg done? He had pulled out his gun slowly so as not to trip off the Slice's periphery sensors, and then took aim and shot it down.

Now he waited until the Slice was rooting within the bedclothes, before bringing a hand down to the shiny gun in its holster. He wrapped two fingers around the grip, began to slowly jerk it out of the holster. The Slice was now entombed deep within the sheets, a bulge pressing against the covers and making a cloth wake behind it. Jack began to move stealthily out of the bathroom, and into the darkness beyond. He was gambling that the Slice wouldn't see him in the gloom, and with its predicament what it was. Fully unsheathing the shiny gun and draping it in a fold of his sleeve, he waited until he could clearly see the Slice and took aim. At that moment, the Slice emerged from the edge of the bed and resumed its nosing about the room. Jack froze again, because the Slice was facing his direction. He did not want to give his presence away, definitely did not, not so close to his goal. The Slice was perusing a light fixture, and turned away slightly.

Jack, while the Slice's vision was not on him, whirled, aimed again, and fired. The bullet whistled through the air and bisected the Slice clean in two. Sparks erupted from the tiny laser emitter within, and soon the little body was burning on the floor.

Just to be sure, he scooped up the two smoldering pieces, and hurriedly doused them in tap water. Then he placed them in the bottom of the sink and covered them in shaving cream, just to be doubly sure. He walked out of the bathroom, and snuck over to the room's door; with a swift motion he pulled it open and peered out into the hallway. Bringing the shiny gun out in front of him, he began to walk steadily down the hall.

Helen and John rounded the corner at that moment. Jack lowered the weapon and made for them. John looked over at him, and surprise darkened his features.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Someone," Jack replied, "tried to assassinate me with a Slice."


	8. Chapter 8: The Investigation

_"In space travel, one name reigns supreme: Robloxia! We have the best luxury flights, the best service, and the best arrival times! Luggage is loaded while you wait, and unlike any other passenger ships, Robloxian technicians and crew will handle everything while you relax in your five-star top-notch suite! A stunning view of the stars will present itself as you dine on fine foods and drink exquisite beverages hand-prepared by our finest mixers! And with a gun compliment of over fifty per ship, attacks from the depths of space are a thing of the past! Robloxia: where we serve you best!"_

_Robloxian Transport Ways ad, before the First Robloxian War_

"A Slice?! In the Great Justice?!"

Gold sat in his captain's chair in his study, livid with fury. Before him stood Jack, John, and Helen. In his hands, Jack carried the burnt-out fragments of the Slice, now a milky and mottled black.

"How the hell did it get in?!" raged Gold. "How the hell?! I personally oversaw the cargo manifest! We scanned EVERY SINGLE MAINTENANCE PASSENGER! How's this possible?! HOW?!" Gold stood up, swept the papers off his desk, stomped to the corner of the room and slammed his fists against the wall. As a secretary looked at him in puzzlement, Gold snapped, "Get back to your work!" The secretary hastily looked back down at his computer screen.

"With... all due respect, sir," Jack cut in, "that Slice might have entered with one of the support staff. If you scan only the _maintenance _workers, then that's a problem."

"What do you know?!" bellowed Gold. "I've gotta run a whole STARSHIP here! And you're just some... isolated city boy!"

"Yes, I suppose that's true," said Jack. With a flourish of his coat, he withdrew a set of credentials. "I'm an isolated city boy with over a dozen commendations, a high rank in Spectre Branch, and the Purple Spider award. What do you have to say to that? AND, to compound all that, I was hired as a _security _officer, and I'm going to damn well secure around here even if it does mean-" and here his confidence swelled dramatically "-relieving you of your command if you fail to measure up."

"You wouldn't dare," Gold said flatly.

"I might just dare at that," Jack replied. "Unless, of course, you step up to your responsibilities... like a responsible captain should. And I'd recommend, to start, posting more guards around the ship. I noticed on my walk over here that there were very few guards around some of the more vulnerable parts of the ship. The few guards I did see were armed only with stunsticks. Why's that? You didn't anticipate any danger on the flight? I don't know a lot about space, but I know a lot about security, and the prime philosophy of security is to never let your guard down, even for a moment. Now, I'd like you to assign more guards, and this time _arm them well. _None of that stunstick rubbish, I'm talking about automatic or semi-automatic rifles, maybe a sidearm. Don't skimp on defense! Never skimp on defense! Don't you have an armory? And also, I've noticed a distressing lack of people on the exterior guns. I'm not sure of the rules about that, but I'd advise you fill every defensive post on this damn battleship before tomorrow, or I'll have to contact the Admins and have them reason for me!"

"Mwuh," Gold grunted. The tirade had shaken him badly. But Jack wasn't finished yet.

"I also want you to round up all the support staff on your ship. First mate, communications officers, everyone should report to one of those huge hangar bays you've got just lyin' around. Ever seen those old detective shows, captain? The detective rounds everyone up in the parlor, and he walks around, inspects 'em, and he doesn't let a detail slip past him, and usually he finds his murderer pretty quick. I want you to do that with the support staff, as soon as possible. Understood?"

"Gwuuuuuh hunh," Gold mumbled, nodding dazedly.

"That's all for now," Jack concluded. "Although I might find more things along the way. You never know..."

"Yeah," added John. "You never know." He made an exaggerated suspicious face. For the first time, Jack saw Helen almost crack a smile.

They left Gold to mull over this. As they walked back down the hallway, John looked at Jack.

"Dude, that was legendary," he said.

"I was just making stuff up as I went along," Jack said. "I didn't actually know if I outranked Gold. It was just a lucky guess."

"That appears to be the luckiest guess of the year," Helen muttered.

-OOO-

Oil Duke Shako Hadad was levitating fifty feet in the air, almost at the top of the vaulted ceiling of his chambers. From the floor below, Fadiris watched, face turned upwards. Duke Hadad was a gravity enthusiast. He had been finding ways to circumvent and nullify gravity ever since he had ascended to old Oil Duke Rajid's throne. The obsession had only intensified after Shako had lost his legs in a freak mine explosion on Iceor. Shako himself had ordered a steel sphere, combined with one of his latest antigravity mechanisms, as an upgraded replacement to his legs. Shako's hands had also been upgraded with mini gravity altering modules that were embedded in his palms. The final touch were his eyes, which were built to see fluctuations in gravity overlaid on normal vision, a truly novel augmented reality.

"Your Tanan output is stupendous, Fadiris," Shako said. His deep voice carried clearly to Fadiris's ears, and Fadiris bowed.

"Thank you, sir!" he shouted.

Shako descended, rotating slightly as he did so like a corkscrew. He came to rest ten feet above the floor. The gravity sphere emitted a faint hum.

"The Robloxians want this planet," he said. "Do you know this?"

"Yes, Your Excellence," Fadiris replied, scraping his head on the floor. "They have contacted us, but we have delayed negotiations!"

"Negotiations will not occur," Shako said. "You will assemble your fleet and destroy the first Robloxian ship that arrives. Only my Oil Empire will profit from the Tanan."

"Yes, Your Excellence," Fadiris repeated.

"Good," Shako said. He moved swiftly to a corner of the room, and turned back to face Fadiris. "Now, the traitor I have planted aboard the Robloxian primary ship, the Great Justice..."

"Sir?"

"Ah, but you have not been informed, have you, my dear?" The Duke shot up into the air, rotated five times on his axis, and came to rest ten feet above the floor again. "I have... lightly bribed one of the security dispatch of the Great Justice to kill one of Robloxia's newest and greatest heroes - not because it's enjoyable, but because it will shake the Adminship. They will know that their only recourse is military intervention. And when they intervene... they will feel our burn."

"A brilliant plan, Your Excellence!" Fadiris exclaimed, bowing and scraping.

"Not brilliant enough. It needs more detailed planning," the Duke replied. "But for now, that's none of your concern. Focus on Tanan output, and defense of Oxiaris. And as well as that, assure that my apartments here are secure."

"At once, Your Excellence!"

The Duke nodded, and glided gently out of the room. Fadiris watched him go, and then used the hand signal drilled into the Hadad guardsmen to mean "battle positions." As guardsmen emerged from the shadows, Fadiris stalked out of the room.

-OOO-

There was a lineup of support crew when Jack entered the large hangar bay. Apparently, his orders had spread faster than he had anticipated. Nevertheless, he took up position in front of the rank.

"I've called you here today," he said, "because one of you is a murderer."

Nobody spoke.

"Last night at about 11:00 PM," Jack continued, "something called a Slice was set on me in my room. Now, that could only have been released within the bounds of the ship. We were in render space at the time, and another ship couldn't have possibly intercepted us at the speed that we were going. The maintenance crew is scanned, but not the special support crew... so I'm going to find out which one of you it is."

He began to survey the line, looking at everyone closely, taking in every detail. Most everyone on the line had some sort of worried, nervous, highly guilty look on their face. One bald man was openly sweating. But out of the sea of terror, he found several islands of calm. These were a short man in blue, a RAT representative with white and gray armor, a fat man in a suit and top hat, a security guard with the rank of corporal on his lapel, and a woman in a white jumpsuit who looked quite bored with the whole thing. Jack pulled those people out of the line, and motioned for the rest to stand aside. They did so, and Jack surveyed the five he had selected.

"You seem unusually calm in this situation," he said. "I may need to ask you a few questions."

"The hell kind of reasoning is that?" asked the RAT representative sharply.

"Mine, as a matter of fact," Jack snapped back. "Now, I'd like to know your names and affiliation. Go on, you can tell me!"

"We don't have to," the RAT representative insisted. "We've got rights! The Adminship says so in the Sourcecode!"

"We're, at last count, 550,000,000 miles away from the Adminship," Jack said, putting on an air of menace. "Honestly tell me: who at this distance would find out?"

No answer was forthcoming from the RAT representative, or anyone else for that matter.

"Good," Jack said. "I'll ask the question again."

"M'name's Terry," the short man said. "I work for WIJ and I'm a weapon designer."

"I'm Rhodes," the RAT representative said glumly. "I work for RAT as a diplomatic agent. I've received... er, one medal of commendation, but I lost it in the wash."

"I'm Coolman25," said the man in the suit, "and I work for the Robloxian Robux Bank as a financial reporter." As he spoke, his impressive jowls quivered, and his jaw folded smoothly in and out of his double-chin.

"Corporal Gillysuit1337, sir!" the corporal barked, saluting. "Just joined a week ago, sir! I did not do it, sir! You can count on it, SIR!"

"Sally's my name," the woman in the jumpsuit said. "I work for an experimental armor company that might benefit from the Tanan link."

"Which company?" Jack asked. The woman seemed thrown off.

"It's called Parallelogram Enterprises," she explained. "We're based in New Robloxia's Southern Business District."

"Alright, now that I've heard all your stories," Jack said, stepping back, "it's time to determine who among you, if anyone, is the killer." He thought about what had just been related to him. The banker's story rang immediately as plausible. Robloxian Robux Bank had several dozen finance reporters, assigned to correspond with different blogs. Jack had heard Coolman25's name before in a TV advertisement. Apparently, the man had tried to run for Head of Finances, but was beaten by five different candidates... beaten, that is, until he screamed for mercy. Sally's story also checked out. Spectre Branch and Parallelogram Industries were allied, with Paralellogram creating new state-of-the-art armor for the agents, and Spectre Branch funneling millions of Robux into the company every year. The RAT representative would have had to be approved by ColourTheory himself, so any level of suspicion against him would be unwarranted. But Terry and Gillysuit were unconfirmed. Military uniforms were sometimes sold in New Robloxia for ten Tix every set. And WIJ was notorious for having a highly unorganized high-ranks: case in point, Jared Valdez, who, in one of his periods of hiding before taking up the mantle of JaredValdez4, served as a general in a white theater mask. Jack motioned for the three innocents to move back into the crowd, and looked at the two remainders.

"So it comes down to you," he said. "Your stories, gentlemen, do not check out. You, Gillysuit, what garrison did you first arrive at?"

Gillysuit betrayed a momentary flicker of surprise. "The Blockland outpost just outside-"

"Wrong!" Jack shouted, cutting him off. "Wrong, wrong, wrong! WRONG! You of all people, as a soldier of Robloxia, should know where ya first join up as a cadet! Cadets report directly to the Admin Island central garrison when they apply, didn't you know that?"

"Yes sir-"

"No you didn't, and you have NO right to call me sir," Jack interrupted. "You've got a hole in your explanation I could drive a freakin' UFO through, Gilly. Why'd you lie to me? 'Cause you're hiding something... an attempted hit, maybe?"

"Tha-that's bull," Gillysuit protested.

"Could be, could be," Jack said, softly but clearly enunciated so every syllable sunk into Gillysuit's brain like a rusty nail. "Could most definitely be. I doubt it, though, because you've already given yourself away with that frankly ridiculous slip-up. Now turn around, and I'll slip on the cuffs, and we'll put you in the holding cell, okay?" Gilly, a defeated man, slowly turned and placed his hands behind his back.

Jack turned to place Gilly's wrists in handcuffs. As he did so, he heard a soft little noise from Terry, the rustle of clothing. He heard Helen, nearby, begin to run in his direction, and John shout from his lookout balcony, "HE'S ARMED!" The bullet from Terry's Mauser pistol shot out with a crack and buries itself into Jack's shoulder.

Pain.

As he fell, it amassed behind his vision.

So much pain.

He hit the ground front-first, as he had been taught, so that he didn't bleed out from the bullet wound. Sounds were muffled as if through cotton. He heard Gilly running away, and heard more gunshots from the other support staff and some of the onboard Admin Guards. Terry now fell beside him, dead. Jack struggled to maintain consciousness as the pain roared from his bullet wound, and unholstered the shiny gun. He slowly took aim, his arms shaking. Gilly was heading towards the exit door. Jack pressed down on the trigger, but it was a weak press, and the recoil of the shot forced the gun backwards and out of his fingers. The bullet ricocheted off a wall, completely missing Gilly, who escaped unscathed.

"Bro!" John knelt down just inside his range of vision, which was slowly tunneling into darkness. "C'mon, please don't go like this, man!"

"... A-Admin no... don't let it end like this..." Jack groaned.

_Did I really just say that? That's so clichéd and pointlessly melodramatic, I really _must_ be dying!_

And then, for a short while, he did.


	9. Chapter 9: Banland, part 1

_"Enemies of Society, Allies of Disorder, rise to confront your salvation! Hark! for here we stand, and here we shall remain!"_

_The creed of the Associates_

Jack awoke within his apartment, sweating profusely. He sat up from the bed, looked around. Angelica was not present. Neither, he realized as he surveyed the room more closely, was the purple spider award he had hung on his wall, the bottles of scotch in his glass-fronted liquor cabinet, and his rack of coats on the wall. There were, however, two Noobs sitting on the couch in front of the wall-mounted television. The area around them looked as if a bomb had gone off; refuse, including empty chip bags and candy wrappers, surrounded the couch. The Noobs were laughing hysterically at the show in front of them. Jack, focusing on that, identified it as an episode of the Roblox Forum Simulator from Grand Year 2013.

Wait a minute. Grand Year 2013? Currently, they were well into Grand Year 2014. What was this?

He walked towards the Noobs, who turned to look at him. One of them ventured: "Whaiy yugh in mah house? Gert da eff out!"

"You're in my house, asshole," Jack snarled. He reached into his pocket for the shiny gun - and found it to be missing. He also realized that this wasn't the same long red trenchcoat he had brought aboard the Great Justice, but instead was his old RPD uniform, the one he had accidentally spilled pizza sauce on when he was but a day in the force.

"Geddafughkinshit outta mah houuuuuuuuuuuse!" the Noob screamed. It picked him up by the scruff of the neck, opened the front door, and tossed him out onto the ledge outside. Jack hit the ledge hard, rolled to stop the pain. Oddly enough, his bullet wound wasn't hurting him.

Why wasn't he aboard the Great Justice anymore? The last thing he remembered before blacking out was Terry, the WIJ traitor, shooting him in the back and taking a bullet for the other traitor. But why was he now in his old apartment, which had been taken over by two Noobs in a slowly spreading blast radius of trash?

Hoping to find some answers, he set off down the ledge in front of him. Everything had a faint, hazy, almost dreamlike quality to it. When he encountered the odd pedestrian they all just ignored him as if he were just an uninteresting stain on the sidewalk. Turning sharply on a corner, he saw ahead of him a mass of people, looking at a blur that was presumably one of the bullet trains that operated all through New Robloxia.

Jack joined the group, and watched as it flashed by.

This model, he could tell already, was outdated. There was a red stripe on the side of it, a hallmark of the 2013 Firejet-model bullet trains that had been phased out in early Grand Year 2014 to be replaced with the Icebolts. As far as his knowledge went, all the three-dozen bullet trains in New Robloxia were Icebolt-models.

Something weird was going on here. He knew it.

The train vanished into the distance, and Jack and the other pedestrians were now free to walk over the track bridge and onto the other sidewalk leading to... where? He didn't recognize the building ahead of him. It was a large gray rectangular concrete building, with a uniformity of design that almost hurt to look at. As he watched, the Firejet train from earlier slowed to a halt in front, and the side doors opened, releasing a stream of passengers.

There was a billboard above the entryway to the building, with an electronic display in pixelated yellow-orange letters. It showed something that Jack at first glossed over in favor of the rest of his surroundings, but which eventually brought his eyes back in confusion and dread. The billboard said:

NOW BOARDING ALL DEPARTURES FOR ADMIN ISLAND STOP - 9:30 AM, GM SEPTEMBER, GY 2013

_GY 2013._

"Oh my god," Jack breathed. "This is impossible."

-OOO-

The medic bent over the figure whose upper and lower body was covered in a blue blanket, leaving only the head bare to inspection. The medic itself was a square-headed Blocklander in a white medical apron and carrying a briefcase. It held out a hand, and felt the pulse of Jack Steel. Then it spoke in a voice like a rudimentary speech simulator.

"His Circulatory System Is Fading Fast," the Blocklander reported. "If He Does Not Improve, We Will Have To Hook Him To A Circulatory Automation Machine And Place Him In Suspended Animation."

"What are you currently giving him," Helen asked.

"I Have Administered A Dose Of Stabilizer," the medic said. "With Luck It Will Keep His Pulse Going Long Enough To Find A More Permanent Solution Until His Injury Heals Enough For Normal Circulation To Resume."

The medic walked over to a control panel on the wall and began to punch in some buttons.

"Shall I Patch In Builderman Right Now, Sir And Madam?" it asked.

"Please do," said John. "Immediately."

"Yes Sir." The medic punched a large orange button, and Builderman appeared on a small wall screen. He looked haggard, but he brightened at the sight of John and Helen.

_"Ah, it's you,"_ he beamed. _"How goes the mission?"_

"Jack's been shot, sir," John said flatly.

There was silence on the line.

_"What? Shot? By whom?"_

"There was a traitor aboard the ship," Helen replied. "Whose traitor it is, we don't know yet, but we'll find out when we've captured him."

_"He's still on the loose?"_

"Yes, sir," Helen said, "but believe me, we are trying our best."

_"Okay," _saidBuilderman_. "When you find the traitor, give him an interrogation, and if he doesn't cooperate then try to intensify the pressure."_

"Yes, sir," Helen and John said together.

_"Good. Now, I'd like to see Doctor White. Doctor White, please make your report."_

Doctor White, the Blocklander, cleared its throat. It sounded like a highly compressed laser blast. "Sir, He Is In Unstable Condition. He Has A Weakened Circulatory System From The Shot, Which Punctured A Lung. Tissue Is Being Repaired By An Internal Script As We Speak, But I May Need To Hook Him Up To A Machine."

_"Sounds bad. Well, thank you for reporting, Doctor White. Now, I'll have to report this development and my orders to Captain GoldBC... I will resume correspondence with you tomorrow. Good day."_

The feed cut out.

-OOO-

"Alas, it is all too possible, Jack."

Jack turned around to look at the person behind him, which turned out to be... him. It was an identical copy of himself.

"You're me," he said.

"Yes I am you," he replied.

"How are you here with me?" he asked.

"I am you and you are you and you are also me," he said.

"What?" he said, flummoxed.

"I'm your subconscious, dummy," he said. "I'm that one part of your brain that determines what you are and what you become and where you've been. I'm the subconscious personified... except I'm not because you're yourself personified in your mind."

"I don't get it," he said.

"Agh, you make me hurt with your forebrained stupidity," he said. "I'm you and you're also you, but we are different you's." He approached him. Jack saw that this subconscious-Jack was wearing the clothes he'd be wearing in the future, aboard the Great Justice. There was even, now that he came to look, blood from a bullet hole in the other Jack's back.

"I think I get it now," Jack said. "What do you want?"

"I want to keep you alive," the other Jack replied. "I'm you, and you're me, of course. I'm a self-preservationist just like I am. Or should I say you are. But of course, the formal way of addressing one's self is I."

"I'd pay me good money if I shut up," Jack snapped.

"Fine," the other Jack exclaimed, raising his hands to chest level, open, palms facing out, in a ridiculous parody of shock. "I can see you don't need me to survive. I'll just be off, and you can help yourself stay alive, okay?" He began to fade.

"Wait, no!" Jack screamed. The other Jack paused in mid-fade out, and then reappeared, smiling slightly as though he had just won, which of course he had.

"Then, allow me to show myself the way out of my predicament," he sneered.

They walked on towards the station, the other Jack falling into step beside him. Jack saw that the other Jack walked with a purposeful stride, while at the same time he himself had fallen back into his old habitual slouch. It was kind of intimidating.

_Do I really look that way to other people? _Jack thought.

"Yes I do," the other Jack said. "Now shut up and walk."

They continued to walk in silence.

"What is this place?" Jack inquired at last.

"It's a mental simulation," the other Jack explained. "You and I, or should I say you and you, are drawing from my memory as a fallback. It happens a lot during the really serious injuries... like being shot, as me and me both have been."

"So I'm still alive?"

"Not... as such. I'm in a state of... well, I guess the best word to use is... limbo. We're not dead, not alive. My body does function, but my mind has temporarily taken over as the plane of my existence."

"That's some Zen crap right there," Jack muttered.

"Indeed, that is some Zen crap," the other Jack said. "Come. I must stop the thing that is about to happen."

"What thing? Seriously, I ask question after question and all I get is-"

"Oh shut up." The other Jack quickened his pace. Jack had to run to keep up. They approached the building, keeping an eye out for the billboard. The time steadily ticked on closer to 10:00. Jack's breath became heavier, and he began to perspire, although why he did not know, being in a mental plane of existence after all.

Soon, outside, it began to rain. They hurried inside the building and sat down in a row of seats facing inwards. A sign over the check-in booth said, "EAST END DEPOSIT".

"Ohhhhh, that's what's going to happen," Jack said quietly.

"Yes," said the other Jack. "This place will be destroyed."

"Yeah, I remember," said Jack. "There was that bombing two years ago that screwed over everything. Yeah. Thousands of people dead, and the Associates showed their faces as monumental assholes."

"But you'll have a chance to stop it," said the other Jack.

"Really? Aw, sweet." Jack grinned.

"Not really, though," the other Jack added. "This is just our body's way of dealing with the bullet you were just shot with. This is the healing process, symbolically rendered in your mind's eye as a memory, but an interactive one. You can do whatever you want, but sooner or later, if you want to live... you'll stop the bombing."

"I'll need a weapon," said Jack.

"No you won't. That's what your fist is for."


	10. Chapter 10: Banland, part 2

_"There's something really cool about a visually stimulated mind, y'know, it's like a TV GUI only fifty times better. It records in HD, and it keeps all the emotions too. Emotions, textures, smells, tastes, it's all exotic and beautiful, and so fragile."_

_Grean Overseer, in a casual conversation with Builderman_

_Lump. Lump. Lump. Lump._

Helen's footsteps echoed dully in the hallway. Behind her was Uuom with a Pancor Jackhammer slung over his shoulder, and John to Uuom's left with a pistol. Uuom, prior to this, had to be woken up with a forceful jet of water to the face; he had been so hung-over from the Devil's Loo drink he had imbibed on launching day that he fell into a long and deep coma, and awoke with a frightful headache.

They were looking for Corporal Gillysuit, the confirmed traitor and the partner of the man who had shot Jack.

Jack. Jack was in even more of a critical condition the last time they had checked. But according to Doctor White, the Blocklandian master physician Builderman had hired as head of medical staff, Jack was emanating strange mental activity. It was as though he was trapped within a nightmare or lucid dream, but Doctor White couldn't create a clear digitization of the mental image.

"It Is Unfortunate He Is In This State," the doctor had commented. "The One Place A Man Should Not Ever Be Trapped Is Inside His Mind."

Helen looked ahead at her, and shifted the assault rifle she had slung over her shoulder slightly, bringing it to a forward position. The rifle was a standard issue FEAR weapon, the G3A3, a formidable ally in any tight combat situation.

"If any of you see or hear anything," she whispered, "tell me what direction it's coming from or point it out. Got it?"

"Yeah," Uuom grumbled.

"Got it," John said.

"Good," Helen replied.

"Yup," Uuom continued.

"Uh-huh," John added. "Yes indeed."

"Undoubtedly," Uuom agreed.

"Will you two shut up," Helen hissed.

_"Tahlia reporting," _said a voice from Helen's pocket. She jerked out the walkie-talkie and held it up to her ear. Tahlia sounded bored. _"I just saw a movement in one of the air vents. Heading your way, Helen. Over."_

"Acknowledged," Helen said, and deactivated the walkie-talkie. She ordered a halt and stood, looking around.

There was a scuffling in the vents.

"Ready?" Helen whispered.

"Ready," everyone else replied.

A grate in the wall rattled. Helen slowly began to pivot as the screws began to unscrew in the metal frame. The thing fell away, revealing darkness beyond. Then a long-fingered red hand emerged, followed by a skeletal, featureless face. In short order a Void Monster was standing in its entirety in the corridor, and another one was swiftly emerging.

"He must have patched in a colony," Helen exclaimed. "FIRE EVERYTHING!"

As the Void Monsters screeched, Helen, Uuom and John opened fire. Bullets shredded the silence, left holes in the walls, and killed multiple Void Monsters. But for every monster they killed, exponentially more of them emerged from the wall. And they were adapting to the bullets, like some sort of sentient computer network that learned from experience. The newest batches had progressively stronger and stronger armor. Eventually the defenders realized it was virtually useless to fight these invincible horrors.

They retreated out of the hallway into the large room that had preceded them, a dining area. Already the Void Monsters were beginning to emerge from the room's grates. The few remaining patrons were dashing for the exits, but there were too many Void Monsters and they overwhelmed the refugees. Then they closed in on the defenders. Helen began to fire madly, and so did everyone else, but it was no use. They got closer, and closer, and closer. The foremost one reached for Helen, grasped her, pulled her close, raised a taloned hand. The claws raked down her cheek, and she was about to scream when a glow of orange disrupted the vision. The Void Monster holding her let go, and collapsed, beginning to blister uncontrollably.

Behind the rank of Void Monsters was captain GoldBC, with a Void Lamp clutched in his hand.

He bore a path through the attackers, took Helen by the arm, helped her to her feet, and held the lamp by her face until the venom of the Void Monster's claws had evaporated away. Then he stood her upright, and then held aloft the lamp again. Smoke and the smell of burnt hair filled the room.

"Hurry, we gotta find the spawn area!" Gold shouted.

"What if there are multiple ones?" Uuom asked. "I'm not ready to die yet!"

"I've got a Void Lamp," Gold replied, "there's nothin' to worry 'bout!"

"Oh, bullshit," John muttered as they followed Gold back the way they came.

OOO

It began to rain in Jack's subconscious. The sky was gray, and covered in dark clouds like a fleece blanket. Large droplets thundered onto the pavement, and onto the arriving bullet train, which ground to a halt in front of the station. Jack, his other self sitting beside himself, watched the doors open and passengers begin to stream out.

"The bomber's in this crowd," the other Jack said.

"Can ya help me out a bit and tell me where?" Jack asked.

"Only you, with the opening mind, can detect the killer," the other Jack answered.

"So that's a no, is it?"

"Er... yes, it's a no."

"No?"

"Yes - er, I mean no."

"Maybe?"

"Just find the guy," the other Jack snapped.

"Right," Jack muttered, "right, yes, ahem." He stood up from the chair and, trying to look inconspicuous, surveyed the crowd. The stream was filled with denizens of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The rain swept into the room through the sliding doors, scattering water across the floor in tiny tsunamis.

_Where could he be, _Jack thought. _Now, let me think. Back to the report of the attack, oh yes, and here we have a picture, yes, and it's of the burnt station... Yes. And the reporter's describing the alleged bomber from the security camera footage... um... how? Tall-ish, he's saying. A blond. Long hair down to his upper back, er, or something. Blond or chestnut. Hazel? No, maybe auburn or ginger. No, it was blond, maybe dark blond. Yes. The man's body type... er, 2.0._

There were many people amongst the crowd who fit that description. Jack scanned it more intensely. The people numbered in the hundreds that swarmed off that bullet train.

Then he saw someone that looked a tad more guilty than the rest of the horde.

The man's physical appearance fitted perfectly with not only the reporter's description, but also the security camera footage itself. He wore a rugged brown leather jacket, scuffed khaki long pants, and white sneakers. In short, the man looked like a traveler with a checkered past.

"HEY, YOU!" Jack shouted. Several people turned and looked, but the traveler man resolutely kept looking forwards. "YOU, YOU," Jack shouted again, this time making a dash for the traveler man. The man, frightened, bolted. "TAKE THAT MAN!" Jack ordered the security guards stationed at the scanning station up ahead.

One of them looked over skeptically. He was the one holding the scanner itself. He had an M1 Garand slung over his shoulder by its strap.

"Uh, sir, I don't even know you, so you can't give me orders," he said. "We ain't the police. Fuck the police! You go grab him."

"Yeah, screw 'em," said the other one.

"Fine, you're gettin' the first budget cuts, you sorry bastards," Jack muttered, and sped off in pursuit of the fleeing traveler man.

The traveler man bolted into a convenience store with brilliant white lighting, just off a row of lavatory doors. Jack followed close on his heels, accidentally smashing through a display of bottle green glasswork; he kept on running as the traveler man vaulted over the store counter, removed a Glock from his pocket and pressed it up against the clerk's head.

"Give it up, copper," he wheezed. "Or the dude gets it."

For a split second, the face of the traveler man was one and the same with the face of Arthur Ipecac.

"That's a bad idea, sir," Jack said calmly, reaching for his gun holster. But he remembered the shiny gun was conspicuously absent, and instead he felt the smooth grip of his shoddy regulation RPD pistol. This pistol was so lousy in terms of accuracy that a man aiming for a headshot would land one in the guy next to him. Jack sighed, and brought the pistol out. The traveler man laughed. But the laugh seemed more forced than anything.

"You'll threaten me with that thing?!" he sputtered. "Admin, gimme a freakin' BREAK!"

Jack made sure to put a little extra shake in the pistol; for that would distract the traveler man enough to completely ignore his other hand reaching for the stun baton hanging at his left hip.

"Alright, what are your demands?" he asked, to divert the man's attention. From the traveler man's chokehold, the storekeeper whimpered.

"I demand for you to let me go free!" the man shouted.

Jack nodded. His left index finger slid across the ridged rubber handle of the stun baton.

"Sounds like a... reasonable... demand, sir."

The traveler man suddenly became cocky, and a grin flashed upon his face.

"Uh," he continued, "uh... and also, FIVE THOUSAND ROBUX! And ninety-nine Tix."

"That also sounds reasonable," Jack agreed meekly. He found leverage enough to stealthily begin to slide the baton from its sheath.

"And a free house on Admin Island with a view of the ocean, and a Robloxaville Bank Account where I can funnel my assets, and a yacht, and an exotic car, and a solid gold helicopter, and-"

"Accepted, accepted," Jack said, raising his hands plaintively. "Fine, fine, fine. Just release the dude and maybe drop your weapon and I can let you go about your-" at which point he suddenly flashed forward and hurled the stun baton point blank at the traveler man's head. The weapon struck, and the traveler man fell wildly backwards, limbs flashing alternately blue, white and black with electrical charge. The man's Glock discharged wildly into the ceiling, and soon after there was a ringing silence except for the _crackle _of shattered plaster.

Jack lowered the gun.

"Boy, you sure nailed him," said the other Jack.

"Is he dead?" asked Jack.

"Not yet, but that's a pretty nasty concussion, and the electricity in the stun baton probably didn't do him any good."

"So I've recovered?" asked Jack. "This is my 'recovery'?"

"Technically," answered the other Jack, "this is an _early _recovery. You may feel some small pain."

-OOO-

HEART RATE: LOW

Dr. White sighed.

"Inject Another CC Of Accelerant," he ordered his assistant. "This Stubborn Clod Of A Body Cannot Comprehend Anything We Throw At It."

HEART RATE: MEDIUM

Dr. White did a double take.

"And Do A Diagnostic On The Health Bar," he suggested, keeping his eyes on the screen. "It Runs On Studio 2013, So It Is Broken As..."

"Sir," the assistant gasped, "the health bar isn't lying."

"Wait, So Did We Just Inject A Perfectly Healthy Man With Fifty CCs Of Accelerant?" asked Dr. White incredulously.

"Yeah, just like the Bloxburg incident, sir," the assistant said.

HEART RATE: HIGH

Jack's eyes snapped open. Dr. White saw that the pupils were dilated, and the iris' color was more reddish.

"Oh Shit," he suggested.

In a flash Jack tore out of his bindings and sped out of the operation room.

As he ran, Jack took no notice of the fact that he was shirtless, nor the fact that there was a blood-soaked bandage wrapped bandolier-style around his wound. He was overwhelmed by the power of the accelerant.

-OOO-

Tahlia tried to resist the flood of Void Monsters, but it was slowly but surely overcoming her. They pressed against her portable mini-shield, and the green laser field that comprised it blotched and crackled. She raised her walkie talkie to her mouth.

"Helen, I need backup, and more shield power!" she ordered.

Dead static erupted from the other end.

"Helen?!" Tahlia tried.

Static.

"Dammit," she swore, throwing the walkie-talkie down and blasting a few heavily armored Void Monsters, pushing them back but otherwise doing no damage whatsoever. There was no other way to end this, she decided, but with explosives. She unclipped a grenade from her belt, and hefted it in one hand. Looking at its shiny surface, she saw her face reflected in the metal.

Her left hand closed over the pin.

At that moment, something red hot and fast as lightning flashed through the door, splinters of iron flying everywhere. The thing darted in between the Void Monsters, and they seemed to be pulled down from its wake. As Tahlia watched, it darted to the side, reached straight through a wall in a scream of tortured metal, and tore it asunder, entering and reappearing with a struggling figure clutched in its fist. The figure looked like Gillysuit, the soldier who had shot Jack. And the thing that had grabbed him was the man he had shot.

Tahlia stared. Jack looked different, and there were still bandages wrapped around his torso. He was shaking Gillysuit violently, and emitting a low growl.

"Where's the generator, asshole?" Tahlia heard him ask.

"I-in my pocket!" the soldier whimpered.

"Goodie."

Jack reached into Gillysuit's right pocket, and brought out a small cylinder. With one movement he smashed it against the wall. Sparks flew from the damaged machine, and the Void Monsters began to flicker. Tahlia saw the one nearest to her spit and crackle like a TV with the cable in need of repair. She dropped the personal shield, and stood and watched as the Void Monsters vanished from sight with an ethereal howl. That left her, Gillysuit, and Jack, standing in a small radius of destruction. Through a hole in the wall to her left, Tahlia could see the blur of stars rushing past; Jack's entrance had sheared a hole right through a solid steel wall two meters away.

"Sorry," Jack said, turning to Tahlia. "I think someone overdid it on the anesthesia."


End file.
